BETWEEN THE LARCH-WOODS 
AND THE WEIR 



FLORA KLICKMANN 







Rtmk- .L k 154 - 



PRESENTED MY 



11 1^ 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 



Between 

the Larch-woods 

and the Weir 



By 

FLORA KLICKMANN 

Editor of 
"The Girl's Own Paper and Woman's Magazine 

Author of 
"The Flower-Patch among the Hills" 




NEW YORK 

Frederick A. Stokes Company 

Publishers 



r! ' 



.0* 



\ 






^ 



Ugfett 



Dedicated to 
the Memory 
of Arthur, 
Bertie, and 
Wilfrid — 
my Brothers 



Move along these shades 
In gentleness of heart; .... 
... for there is a spirit in the woods. 



Preamble 

On one of the high hills that border the river 
Wye, there stands an old cottage, perched on an 
outstanding bluff, with apparently no way of 
approach save by airship. 

Looking up at it from the river bank by the 
weir (the self-same weir beside which Words- 
worth sat when he wrote his famous " Lines "), 
you can only glimpse the chimneys and angles 
of the roof, so buried is the house in the trees 
that clothe the hill-slopes to a height of nearly 
nine hundred feet. 

The cottage is not quite at the top of the 
hill ; behind it rise still more woods, making 
the steeps in early spring a mist of purple and 
brown and soft grey bursting buds, followed by 
pale shimmering green, with frequent splashes 
of white when the hundreds of wild cherries 
break into bloom. 

A darker green sweeps over all with the 
oncoming of summer, which in turn becomes 
crimson, lemon, rust-gold, bronze-green, copper 
and orange in the autumn, where coppices of 
birch and oak, ash and beech, wild cherry, crab 
apple, yew and hazel intermingle with the stately 

7 B 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

ranks of the larch-woods that revel in the 
heights, and give the hills a jagged edge against 
the sky. 

The casual tourist who merely " does " the 
Wye Valley — which invariably means scorching 
along the one good road the district possesses, 
skirting the foot of the hills — has a clever knack 
of entirely missing, as a rule, the larch-woods and 
the weir. Obviously, when any self-respecting 
motorist finds himself on a fine road where he 
can trundle along at thirty miles an hour (at the 
least), with seldom any official let or hindrance, 
he naturally shows his friends what his car can 
do ! And in such circumstances it is necessary 
to keep the eyes glued to the half-mile straight 
ahead. Even though the natives are too virtuous 
to need the upkeep of many policemen, stray 
cattle and slow-dragging timber-wains can be 
quite as upsetting as a constable ; while a land- 
slide down the hills may precipitate huge trees 
across the road any day of the year, and prove 
an equal hindrance. 

Hence, the motorist seldom seems to have 
eyes to spare for anything but the road ; he 
takes as read the woods that climb the great 
green walls towering far and yet farther above 
him. And as for the many weirs he passes — 
who could even hear them above the hustle of 
a becomingly powerful car that is hoping to 
boast how it covered the twenty-nine miles from 

8 



Preamble 

Chepstow to Ross in exactly thirty minutes ! 
Small wonder that such as these never see that 
weather-worn cottage, half-hidden among the 
green. 

But for those who are too poor, or too rich, 
to need to bother about advertising their car — 
those who can indulge in the luxury of walking 
with no fear of losing social prestige — there 
is, about that cottage, a world of eternal youth 
that never grows old, a world that is for ever 
offering new discoveries. 

And from the weir in the valley to the larch- 
woods at the summit, curiously insistent voices 
are calling. You have but to walk along the 
river bank to hear them in the tumbling, swirling 
waters as they pour over, and sweep around, the 
boulders in the river bed. And although the 
only living thing you may actually see is the 
blue glint of a darting kingfisher, or a heron 
standing sentinel on some mossed and water- 
splashed rock, or a burnished swallow skimming 
over the surface of the water, you know for a 
certainty that there is more — much more — in the 
murmur of the river and the clamour of the weir 
than the ear can ever classify. 

Loud as it is when the tide is going down, it 
is not noisy — for noise never soothes, whereas 
this babbling of the waters is one of the most 
restful sounds the tired mind can know. 

9 B 2 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

When yon leave the river, and take the path 
that climbs up through the woods — the path 
you have to search for, so overgrown is it with 
nut bushes and bracken and low hanging branches 
of the birches — another sense of mystery awaits 
you. Though the way may get easier, and the 
trail a little more defined, the higher you climb, 
you feel you are penetrating a new land — that 
you are the first ever to come this way. 

And that inexplicable lure of the unknown 
seizes you ; though you can see nothing ahead 
of you but a steep rough footpath arched over 
by the branches of the trees that hedge you 
about on either side, you are conscious of " some- 
thing " beyond the croon of the ringdoves and the 
scuttle of the rabbit. It comes to you in the 
odour of last year's dead leaves under the oaks ; 
in the pungent warm scent of the larches in the 
sun. It greets you in the army of foxgloves 
that have monopolized the one bit of open sky 
space where a few trees were uprooted in a storm ; 
and in the tall clump of dark blue campanula 
that has sprung up in another spot where a sun- 
shaft falls ; and in the regiments of wild daffodils 
in a clearing that so far have escaped the trowel 
of the spoiler. 

You sense it on an early Easter day, when 
you pause half-way up, and look back on a vast 
tracery of bare branches and twigs, pale grey 
where the light strikes on them, and bursting 

10 



Preamble 

into smiles at intervals where the blackthorn 
has come out. 

It speaks to you when you come upon the 
smooth grey bark of the beeches, the beautifully 
ribbed rind of the Spanish chestnut, and the 
scaly, red trunks of the pines. 

You feel it at your feet when you see the 
brown, uncurling fern fronds ; and it pulls at 
your heart when you step across a brook that 
is quietly talking to itself, like a happy baby, 
as it wanders downhill, unconcerned and most 
haphazard, amid watercress and ragged robin 
and creeping jenny. 

When at last you emerge for a moment — 
breathless — from the woods, and come upon the 
cottage, standing in the midst of its gay flower- 
patch, you think you have solved the mystery 
in the sweet smell of the newly turned earth ; 
or that it hovers over the crimson flame of the 
Herb Robert glowing all about the tops of the 
grey stone walls. 

Yet it is not merely the birds and the flowers, 
the wood scents and the trees that hold one as 
with a spell. Such things can be catalogued ; 
whereas there is something intangible among the 
wild woods, something indefinable, beyond all 
material things, that makes in some incompre- 
hensible way for peace of mind and the mending 
of the soul. And it is one of our greatest 

ii 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

blessings that we cannot tabulate it, or order 
it by the dozen from the Stores ; that it cannot 
be " cornered " or monopolized by the money 
grubber. 

The healing of the hills cannot be purchased 
with gold. It is free to all — yet it can only be 
had by individual, quiet seeking. 

The Glory still burns in the Bush ; the Light 
of God's kindling can never be extinguished. 
But sometimes we are too preoccupied to turn 
aside to see the great sight ; and sometimes we 
fail to put our shoes from off our feet, forgetting 
that the place whereon we stand is holy ground. 



12 



II 

Enter Eileen 

I have no " at home " day. I confess it reluc- 
tantly, knowing what a state of social forsaken- 
ness this implies. But it is wonderful how you 
can manage to occupy your time with the simple 
little duties of an editor's office, till you never 
feel the lack of greater events ! 

Not that I am cut off from acquaintances 
thereby ; decidedly not. They are kind enough 
to turn up on Saturday afternoons and take their 
chance of finding me in; and when they do, 
with one accord they proceed to pity me for all 
the " at homes " I've missed during the week, 
and they do their best to make me bright and 
happy for the short half-holiday I am able to 
take from work, while I just sit with my hands 
in my lap and give myself up to being entertained. 

I don't do knitting on such occasions, unlike 
Miss Quirker who, when I chance to call, 
remarks, " You'll excuse my going on with this 
sock, won't you ? — then I shan't feel that I'm 
entirely wasting my time ! " 

For weeks I had been feeling that, no matter 
what happened, I simply must get away from 
London for a change of scene and a change of 
noise — not a holiday ; holidays had been out of 

13 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

the question for some time past, with the major 
portion of the office staff at the front. We had 
been postponing and postponing going away, 
feeling that it was unpatriotic to be out of town 
when there was so much work to do. But at 
last I decided some fresh air was imperative, and 
arranged to spend a little time at my cottage on 
the hillside, Virginia and Ursula, my two most 
intimate friends, accompanying me, as the Head 
of Affairs was abroad on important business. 

It seemed such long, long months since I 
had heard anything about the Flower-Patch. 
True, I had left Mrs. Widow (the villager who is 
supposed to look after the house in my absence) 
a bundle of stamped, addressed envelopes, when 
last I was down, begging her to send me an 
occasional letter, giving me news of the cottage, 
and telling me how the flowers were getting on, 
and whether the rose arches had blown down, 
and when the wild snowdrops in the orchard 
were in bloom, and if there were many apples 
on the new trees we had planted, and whether 
the lavender cuttings had taken hold, etc. I 
felt that a few details of this description might 
help to keep my brain balanced amid the tumult 
and terror of the War. 

Mrs. Widow wrote regularly every month, 
and this is the type of letter she always sent : — 

" Dear Mam. i hope your well, my new- 
ralger has been cruell bad but it is Better now. 

14 



Enter 
Eileen 

my daugters baby ethel have two teeth, she is 
a smart Baby but do cry a lot. Mrs Greens 
little girl have had something in her throat taken 
out. doctor says its had a noise. John Green 
have been called up but I expec you dont know 
none of them As they lives 3 mile above Mon- 
mouth. Mrs Greens sister lives to Cardiff she 
had a boy last week, i hope the master is well. 
Its the Sunday School versary tomorror. Thank 
you for the money, glad to say everything all 

rite. 

Yours 

Mrs Widow." 

I suppose the correct thing would be to call 
the letters " human documents " ; but as the 
humans mentioned in the documents are, as 
often as not, people of whom I have never 
heard, the record of anniversaries, illnesses, 
births, deaths, and marriages that she sends 
regularly each month (as a receipt for cash 
received), are seldom either illuminating or 
exciting. There was nothing for it but to go 
down and glean impressions first hand. 

It was known that I was going out of town 
the following week, therefore a collection of 
callers had looked in, and they were doing their 
utmost to " liven me up " one afternoon in 
February, and we were having a lovely time 
explaining to each other how highly strung our 

i5 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

respective doctors said we were when they in- 
sisted that we must take a complete rest. It 
appeared — after a lavish amount of detail — 
that we each suffered from far too active a brain ; 
I found I was by no means the only one ! 

We also were most communicative about the 
brilliancy of our children — not that we said it 
because we were their mothers, you understand ; 
fortunately, unlike other mothers, we were able 
to take quite detached views of our own children, 
and regard them from a purely impersonal stand- 
point ; a great gain, because it enabled us to see 
how really exceptional they were. 

I was not expected to contribute anything 
under this heading, save copious notes of ex- 
clamation on hearing what the various head 
masters and mistresses had said regarding the 
genius of the respective children. It was simply 
amazing to sit there and just contemplate how 
indebted the world would ultimately be to these 
ladies, for having bestowed such prodigies on 
their day and generation ; for evidently there 
wasn't one of my guests who owned a just- 
ordinary child ! No, these young people were 
all the joy and pride of their teacher, and the 
way all of them would have passed their exams. 
(if they hadn't also possessed too active brains, 
like their mothers), was positively phenomenal. 

There was one exception though — a boy at 
Dulwich, who was notorious for his adhesion to 

16 



Enter 
Eileen 

the lowest place in the form. But his mother, 
not one whit behind the others in her proud 
estimate of her son, confided to me that, for her 
part, she shouldn't think of allowing Claude to 
be high up in the form. His ability was so 
marked, that the doctor said he must at all 
costs be kept back. Besides, you always knew 
that a school that put its brightest and most 
brilliant boys at the bottom of the class never 
showed favouritism or forced the children 
unduly. 

I agreed with her heartily, and then listened 
to the confidences of another caller, a near neigh- 
bour (this one was without children, brilliant or 
otherwise), who told me that she had felt it her 
patriotic duty in war time to do all she could 
with her own two hands in the house ; she had 
therefore cut down her fourteen indoor servants 
to nine ; and she assured me she found that 
they could really manage quite well with this 
small number. Of course I looked politely 
incredulous ; who wouldn't, knowing that there 
was her husband as well as herself to be waited 
upon ? — and I raised my eyebrows interrogatively, 
as though to inquire how she ever succeeded in 
getting even the simplest war-meal served with 
so inadequate a staff! But before she had 
time to tell me how she managed, the door 
opened and Mrs. Griggles was announced. And 
as, whenever Mrs. Griggles is announced, it is 

*7 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

the signal for everyone who can to fly, I was not 
surprised to see furs and handbags being collected, 
and in a few more minutes the newcomer and I 
had the drawing room to ourselves. 

Mrs. Griggles is a woman with, let us say, a 
dominant note ; not that I object to that ; every 
woman nowadays simply must have a dominant 
note if she is to keep her head above water 
(women's war- work has proved a boon in that 
respect), and some of them are more trying than 
Mrs. Griggles' pursuit of charity recipients. 
There is the moth-ball lady, for instance, who's 
perennial boast is that the moth never come 
near her furs ; the nuisance is that no one else 
can come near them either. 

Then there is the educational lady, who runs 
a serial story on the iniquities of our educational 
methods. " The whole system is wrong, abso- 
lute-ly wrong, from beginning to end," she 
declaims. My one consolation is, that she 
would be far less pleased if it were right, since 
she would then have nothing to rail about. 

But my greatest bugbear is the inquisitorial 
lady — generally eulogized by the Vicar, when he 
is stuck fast for an adjective, as ''very capable." 
She starts right away, in the middle of a piece 
of best war-cake, with a clear cut inquiry such 
as : " Does your husband wear striped flannel 
shirts under his white ones ? " Hurriedly you 
try to decide on the safest reply. But she has 

18 



Enter 
Eileen 

you either way ! If you say Yes, she explains 
how injurious it is to wear coloured stripes ; 
they may be a deadly skin irritant, for all you 
know. If you say No, she holds up hands of 
amazement that any woman can neglect the 
man of her heart in such a way, and instructs 
you in the necessity for his wearing flannel in 
addition to his vests. 

Mrs. Griggles is a mere picnic beside the 
inquisitorial lady, for at least you know what 
her theme will be ; whereas with the other you 
never know where she will open an attack. 

Mrs. Griggles' mission in life is to be generous 
and charitable. "It is so beautiful to feel that 
you have done another a kindness, no matter 
how small," she constantly remarks. And I'll say 
this for Mrs. Griggles, I never knew anyone able 
to do so many kindnesses in the course of the 
year — at other people's expense ! And I never 
knew anyone more generous — with other people's 
possessions. 

Where her own belongings are concerned, 
she is the very soul of rigid economy ; why they 
didn't co-opt her on to the War Savings Com- 
mittee I cannot understand. 

Only once has she been known to give away 
anything of her own, and that was a paper 
pattern of a dressing jacket that she cut out in 
newspaper from the tissue original which she 
had borrowed from a friend. 

*9 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

Whenever I see the lady looming in the 
offing, I find myself mentally running over my 
wardrobe, to see what coat or skirt I can spare 
for the sad case she is probably just starting in a 
hairdresser's shop ; or wondering whether I have 
any sheets for a sick woman ; or whether the 
stock of knee-caps I purchased at the last Bazaar 
is quite exhausted ; or whether the kitchen 
would rebel if she does send every week for the 
tea-leaves ; or whether I've given away all the 
Surgical- Aid letters. 

You never know what request she will make. 
Yet she doesn't irritate me, as she does some 
people, simply because I regard her as a Charity- 
Broker ; her work is distinctly useful, and, up to 
a certain point, praiseworthy, if she didn't make 
quite such a song about her own benevolence 
and ignore the part in it played by other people. 

She saves my time by hunting out cases that 
may, or may not, need help ; and if she glows 
when she bestows my money or my boots upon 
them— well, I glow too, with the thought of my 
own kindness and beneficence. And anything 
that can make anybody glow in this vale of 
tears, isn't to be despised. 

Of course I wasn't surprised when she began, 
with her second mouthful, " By the way, dear, 
I've such a distressing case I'm needing a little 
help for; really quite Amr^-breaking." 

I'd heard it all before, and instantly decided 

20 



Enter 
Eileen 

that my mackintosh could go ; it was rather too 
skimpy for the fuller skirts that the season had 
ushered in. Likewise the plaid blouse ; the 
pattern was very disappointing now it was made 
up ; piece goods are so deceptive. And I 
would gladly part with the vermilion satin 
cushion embroidered with yellow eschscholtzias, 
that had lain in a trunk in the attic since the 
last Sale of Work but two, if the distressing 
case could be induced to believe that it needed 
propping up in bed. But the rest of my goods 
I meant to cling to with all the tenacity of a 
war-reduced woman with no separation allow- 
ance. I hadn't one solitary woollen garment to 
spare, no matter how rheumaticky the heart- 
break might be. 

But it turned out that it wasn't clothes she 
was wanting, at least, only as a side issue. Her 
main need was for a few weeks of fresh air, a 
happy home, plenty of good plain food and good 
influence (this last, she told me, was most impor- 
tant, and that was why she had thought at once 
of coming to me) for a girl who had just had a 
bad break-down, through overwork and under- 
feeding in a cheap-class boarding house where 
she had been the maid of all work. Nothing 
the matter with her that you could put your 
finger on, but just a general slump — though 
Mrs. Griggles put it more choicely than that. 

The girl's biographical data included : a 

21 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

grandmother who attended Mrs. Griggles' 
mothers' meeting regularly, though she had to 
hobble there, one of the cleanest and most 
respectful women you could ever hope to meet ; 
a mother who had died in the Infirmary at her 
birth, a father who had never been forthcoming, 
and an upbringing in the workhouse schools. 

I hadn't been exactly planning to take on 
an orphan at that time : they are proverbial for 
their appetites, and the butcher's book hadn't 
led my thoughts in that particular direction, any 
more than the dairyman's weekly bill. All the 
same, when Mrs. Griggles showed me how plain 
my duty lay before me, naturally I said : " Send 
her and her grandmother round to see me this 
evening." I was even more anxious to see the 
grandmother than the girl ; for I had long ago 
given up all hope of ever meeting again such a 
phenomenon (or perhaps it should be phenomena, 
being feminine) as a woman who was clean as 
well as respectful ! 

They arrived promptly. The grandmother 
seemed a sensible, hard-working body, who had 
migrated from Devonshire to London when she 
married ; for over forty years she had lived, or 
rather existed, in the back-drifts of our great 
city with never a glimpse of her native village. 
Yet 

On my writing table there stood a bowl of 

22 



Enter 
Eileen 

snowdrops, in a mass of sweet-scented frondy 
moss, with sprigs of the tiny-leaved ivy ; they had 
arrived only that morning from the Flower-Patch 
among the hills. When she saw them, the old 
woman clasped her hands with genuine emotion. 
" Oh, ma'am, how they 'mind me of when I was a 
girl ! " she exclaimed. " And with that moss and 
all ! Why, 1 can just feel my fingers getting all 
cold and damp as they used to when I did 
gather them in the lane 'long by our house — it 
seems on'y yesterday, that it do ! " and tears 
actually came to her eyes. 

I decided on the spot that her granddaughter 
should have the freshest of air and the best of 
food (to say nothing of unlimited good influence) 
for the next month, at any rate. 

As for the granddaughter herself, I think 
she was the most utterly dejected, forlorn, of- 
no-account-looking girl I have ever set eyes 
on. She told me she was twenty (though her 
intelligence seemed about fourteen), and her 
name was Eileen. It was noticeable,] however, 
that her grandmother, in the fit of reminiscent 
absent-mindedness occasioned by the snowdrops, 
called her Ann. 

It wasn't that she looked ill ; hers was an 
expression of hopelessness ; the look that comes 
to a young thing from a course of systematic 
unkindness from which it has neither the wit 
nor the courage to escape. Since she had left 

23 c 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

the Parish Schools, she had apparently drifted 
from one place to another, each worse than the 
last. Fortunately her grandmother had kept a 
firm hold of her, and had done her best to keep 
her clean — both in body and mind ; but her 
whole appearance said as plainly as any words, 
that no one else had ever taken the slightest 
personal interest in her, or given her anything to 
hope for. 

Her hair was screwed round in a small tight 
knot in the nape of her neck, and kept there by 
two huge hairpins the size of small meat skewers ; 
her dress was merely a dingy-black shapeless 
covering, not even a fancy button to brighten 
it ; her hat was a plain all-black sailor. She 
had that blank, dazed look that one so often sees 
when lower-class children are brought up in 
masses, where individual attention is impossible. 

I told them that I was going down to the 
West of England the following week, and if she 
thought she could stand the quiet, and the 
absence of shops and people, Eileen could come 
for a month, and just breathe the fresh air and do 
her best to get strong. 

She was genuinely delighted — there was no 
mistake about that. She seemed quite to wake 
up, and became almost animated at the thought 
of going into the country. That was the thing 
that appealed to her ; and she looked at me 
with open-eyed amazement when I told her 

24 



Enter 
Eileen 

that the snowdrops grew wild in the orchard 
there. 

In the orchard ? And might she pick a few 
for herself and send one or two to her grand- 
mother? Wouldn't "they" mind if anyone 
picked some ? She had never seen a violet or a 
primrose growing wild in her life, though she 
had always wanted to. 

And she and her grandmother looked and 
smiled at each other with some new bond of 
sympathy. 

Heredity will out ! 

" But," said the grandmother firmly, almost 
ashamed of her own sentimental lapse of the 
minute before, " of course she will work, ma'am, 
and work well — or she's no granddaughter of 
mine ! — in return for your great kindness in 
having her. She can't pay you in money, but 
she can work, and I hope you'll find her very 
useful. You'll do your best for the lady, won't 
you, Ann ? " — most severely to the girl. 

"Yes, grandmother," she replied, dropping 
back into an attitude of meek dejection. " Of 
course I'll do my very best." 

I told them there was no need for her to do 
more than make her own bed. Abigail would 
be there to do all I needed. But the girl 
protested she should be happier if she had 
proper work to do, if only I could find some- 
thing I wanted done ; and her grandmother 

25 c 2 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

insisted that she hoped she knew her place, and 
it wasn't a lady she was born to be, and therefore 
I must see that she didn't sit with her hands 
idle. 

So I said she and the housemaid must settle 
it between them, and I summoned Abigail to be 
introduced to Eileen, and explained that they 
would be spending the next week or two together. 

Abigail listened, I presume, though her gaze 
was on the curtain-pole at the far end of the 
room ; and she finally departed with neither look 
nor word that betrayed the slightest conscious- 
ness of Eileen's existence ; Eileen meanwhile 
looked nervously frightened and more dejected 
than ever. 

I was by no means surprised when Abigail 
sought me out next morning to inquire, if it was 
all the same to me, might cook go down to the 
country this time, in her stead ? as her sister 
was expecting to be married immediately — well, 
it might be next week, or the week after, or 
next month ; she couldn't say exactly ; it all 
depended on when her young man got leave. 
But naturally she, Abigail, wanted to be present 
at the wedding; and one couldn't get up in 
half-an-hour from Tintern I In any case, she 
was having a new dress made, in readiness for 
the event, and wanted to go to the dressmaker 
next Friday. 

26 



Enter 
Eileen 

It would be a most inhuman person who 
sought to part a girl and her sister's wedding ; 
naturally I said on no account must she be away 
from London on such an occasion — and please 
send cook to me. 

She came, with pursed lips. 

Of course, if Madam wished her to go down 
to the country, Madam had only to give instruc- 
tions, etc. — the inference being that whenever 
Madam gave instructions, crowds flew to carry 
them out 1 

But her left ankle had been very trouble- 
some lately ; Madam probably remembered that 
it was all due to the time she turned her foot 
under on the rough path in the lower wood the 
very last occasion she went down. She had 
thought of asking for a couple of hours off, to go 
to the doctor about it to-morrow ; but of course, 
if there wasn't time for that, etc. 

February in the country never did agree 
with her ; always gave her hay fever, she was 
never herself for six months after; still, if I 
wished her to go next week, etc. 

Only, there was one point on which she 
would be glad of a clear understanding before 
she went : was she expected to ivait on that young 
person ? 

I told her, no ; and she need not wait on me 
either. I shouldn't take either of them down 
with me. I left it at that — to her surprise. 

27 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

Then I sought out Eileen and her grand- 
mother, asked if she felt she could make the 
fires and wash up, if Mrs. Widow and I did all 
the rest ; as, if so, I should pay her at the same 
rate that I paid Abigail. You should have seen 
the look of relief that came over her face when 
she heard Abigail was not going. 

" Oh, I could do everything" she said. " I'd 
so much rather do it and be by myself. I'm 
very strong ; and I'm afraid I might upset Miss 
Abigail." 

" Miss Abigail ! " snorted the old grand- 
mother. " Has to earn her living same as the 
rest of us, I suppose ! But I'm much more easy 
in my mind, ma'am, that Ann is going without 
her. She'll look after you well, she will ; you'll 
want nothing, her '11 see to that " (slipping back 
into her old-time Devonshire), "but she's not 
bin used to stuck-up society." 

Thus it came about that instead of the 
fashionably-attired and efficient Abigail, I even- 
tually went down to my cottage accompanied 
by a girl who looked precisely like an estimable 
orphan, just stepped out of some Early Victorian 
Sunday-school library book ; and you felt sure 
she would come to an equally virtuous end. 

Nevertheless, I didn't go the following week, 
as I had planned. 



28 



Ill 

44 You Never Know" 

Life is full of surprises. 

Virginia has always maintained that the 
motto of my house ought to be "you never 
know," simply because of the rapidity with 
which I change my mind, and the complications 
and unexpected developments that follow there- 
upon. 

She begged me to have it carved in the 
wooden beams above the mantelpiece. But as 
I didn't, she brought me a Chinese tablet (her 
brother is a persistent traveller, and I think she 
had unearthed it from some of his effects), 
bearing on a red background three imposing- 
looking Chinese symbols, in gold. 

I asked her what they meant ; though I have 
never embarked on any language of China, 
Virginia has studied most things under the sun, 
and I concluded she knew. She replied that it 
was the household motto : " You never know " ; 
and she placed it in a conspicuous position 
above the fireplace in my London dining-room. 
And when guests asked its meaning, of course I 
translated it for them, with the air of one who 
had spoken Mandarin from her cradle ; and they 
looked proportionately impressed. 

29 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

One day, however, an Oriental scholar of 
unquestionable authority chanced to be dining 
with us, and he suddenly raised his glasses and 
studied the tablet with evident interest. 

" May I ask why you have that above the 
mantelpiece ? " he inquired politely. 

" Oh, it's merely the family motto," I answered 
airily, "but we have it in Chinese to-night, in 
your honour." 

" Really ! You do surprise me ! ! It seems 
so curious to be greeted with that in your 
house ! ! ! " And he looked at me in undisguised 
amazement. 

Then I grew anxious, and wondered to 
myself what it did mean ; and since discretion 
is the better part of a good many things, I 
thought it would be wisest to explain that 
I hadn't the faintest idea what it stood for. 

He smiled when I confessed. " Well, I can 
tell you," he said, as he proceeded to mumble a 
little in an unknown tongue to himself, reading 
each collection of strokes in turn. " It means — 
er — let me see — well — to translate it quite 
broadly, you understand, in the vernacular, the 
nearest equivalent in English is ' Beware of 
Pickpockets.'" 

Truly, you never know ! 
Work was extra heavy in my office that 
week. Like every other business house, we 

30 



"You Never 

Know" 

were understaffed, with the majority of our 
expert men at the front. Moreover, I was 
trying to get things a little ahead, as I was 
going away on the Friday. 

I did not get home till nearly nine o'clock 
on the Tuesday following my adoption of 
Eileen, and by that time I was too tired to 
trouble about matters domestic. Nevertheless 
I noticed that the house seemed very draughty ; 
but I put it down to a very high wind that had 
set in earlier in the day. 

As I was going upstairs to bed about half- 
past ten, I noticed the powerful draught again. 
I like plenty of air in the house, but after all a 
line should be drawn somewhere when it is 
blowing a hurricane, and I said so. 

" Well, and to think I forgot to tell you ! " 
said Abigail cheerfully. " The skylight's blown 
clean away, and rain's been pouring in like any- 
thing on the top landing ! " Judging by her 
pleased expression, you might have thought that 
the deluge was in gold. 

If you have ever been fortunate enough to 
find yourself minus a fair-sized skylight on a 
stormy night, and the man of the house away 
on urgent business, and not expected back for a 
month, you will know what my feelings w r ere 
when I heard the news. It is useless for me to 
try to describe them. 

Virginia and Ursula, who live near me in 

3i 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

London, were hastily summoned. By the time 
we had all done exclaiming, " Well, I never ! " 
singly and in chorus, and had heard full details of 
the catastrophe repeated for the eighth time by 
Abigail, it was eleven o'clock. And as no self- 
respecting builder's man can do any work after 
five o'clock (and few seem able to do any before 
that hour), it was obviously useless to hope for 
professional aid. So we took a step-ladder to 
the top landing and piled it on a table, with me 
on top of all, domestics clutching the step-ladder 
fervently as I balanced myself on its dizzy 
height, and exclaiming, " Oh, do be careful, 
madam ! " at frequent intervals ; with Virginia 
and Ursula offering unlimited advice in a 
running duet. 

At last I was high enough to get my head 
out of the space where the skylight ought to 
have been, and there I saw it further down the 
roof. I fished for it with the crook of an 
umbrella-handle, and got it up at last, though 
it threatened to blow away again every moment. 
We managed to secure it by putting some 
screws in the framework of the roving skylight, 
and also in the woodwork to which that skylight 
was supposed to be attached, but wasn't ; and 
then winding copper wire round and round both 
sets of screws. In this way we kept the flighty 
creature anchored till the morning. I was 
rather proud of the neat and effectual job 

32 



"You Never 
Know" 

I had made of it, when I surveyed it from 
below. 

The builder smiled politely j but pitifully 
when he gazed at my efforts next day. He 
then proceeded to explain to me that though, of 
course, he was quite competent to refix that 
skylight as it ought to be fixed (and as, indeed, 
it never had been fixed since the day the house 
was built), nevertheless it would be an exceedingly 
awkward job. From what I could gather from 
his technical conversation, and diagrams made 
with a stubby bit of pencil on old envelopes 
from his pocket, that skylight had been placed 
in 'absolutely the most inaccessible part of the 
whole roof; it would take all sorts of ladders, to 
say nothing of scaffolding, to get anywhere near 
it, etc. It would be a dangerous job, too, and of 
course he must take every precaution and run no 
risks. All of which I knew from past experience 
was by way of letting me know that (being the 
unfortunate owner of the property) I should have 
the privilege of settling a nice long bill presently. 

I did feebly suggest that rather than imperil 
the lives of his most valuable-looking assistants, 
he should simplify matters by dealing with the 
skylight from the inside. But he only looked 
at me witheringly and said, " Madam, the hinges 
are outside." 

Naturally, I was humiliated and effectually 
silenced. 

33 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

When, finally, they had accomplished the 
well-nigh impossible, and reached that skylight, 
the builder returned to report that never, in all 
his life, had he seen a roof in worse condition 
than mine was. It appeared to be simply a 
special providence that the whole covering to 
the house had not blown clean away — or else 
tumbled in on top of us ! He said he just 
wished I would come up and see it ; he didn't 
ask anyone merely to take his word for it ; there 
it was for me to see ; and I might believe him 
when he said that if the roof needed three new 
slates it needed three hundred. 

Once again I got in a gentle word to the 
effect that it was strange we had never had any 
trouble with the roof, nor a drop of rain come 
through ; but the look of injured, virtuous 
dignity he put on at the mere hint of doubt on 
my part, made me hastily beg him to proceed 
with the necessary work — otherwise I saw myself 
sitting up another night sick-nursing a skylight I 

The builder told me I needn't worry about 
the gentleman being away ; lots of gentlemen 
he was in the habit of working for were away 
just now ; he would superintend the work his 
own self, and he went off assuring me that he 
meant to make a good job of it. 

Then I sent a note to Eileen, asking her kindly 
to postpone packing for a few days, as I was 
unavoidably detained in town. 

34 



"You Never 
Know" 

The men got on the top of the roof most 
mornings at about half-past six, and apparently 
started to play golf up there — judging by the 
sounds overhead. But they always found it 
too windy, or too wet, or too something, to stay 
up there, once they had awakened the whole 
household. So they invariably went away again 
till about three-thirty in the afternoon — by which 
time I suppose the roof was thoroughly well 
aired, and it was safe for them to sit on it and 
smoke a pipe or two. 

It was a fortnight before that roof was finished. 
Finally they left. And the kitchen staff grew 
pensive. 

But the very day after they had cleared their 
ladders away, I saw a tiny stream oozing out of 
the sodden grass in the front garden. I knew, 
even before the builder returned and looked wise, 
that it was a leak in the pipe leading from the 
water-main. 

The pipe-mending squad that arrived next 
morning was not the same as the roof-mending 
squad ; but the kitchen, being quite impartial, 
recovered its spirits immediately. 

These men, evidently most competent, started 
work in a business-like manner, by removing the 
two sets of gates, that terminate the semi-circular 
carriage drive, and blocking up the stable door 
with them. Next they dug what looked like a 
network of trenches for giants. They piled up 

35 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

the edging tiles from the beds, and the gravel 
from the paths, on the front door step ; they 
banked up turf and more gravel under the 
windows ; they uprooted laurels and privet, and 
the usual array of evergreens that are the only 
things that will keep alive in a London front 
garden, and laid them one on top of the other, 
effectually barricading the tradesmen's entrance. 
And when they had made it delightfully impos- 
sible for anyone to get either in or out of the 
house, they one and all came to a halt, and leant 
wearily on their picks. 

Just then a brilliant idea seemed to strike 
one of them whereby he might make himself a 
still greater nuisance, and he hurriedly turned 
off the water. 

They spent the remainder of the day resting 
on their tools — save when they were gallantly 
passing in cans and jugs of water (borrowed from 
my neighbour) to smiling Cook or Abigail at the 
side door. 

It rained hard all night, and by next morning 
we had quite a spacious lake in the front garden. 
The squad returned to the post of duty, and 
once more disposed themselves like guardian 
angels on its banks. When, in sheer exaspera- 
tion, I asked them how long they were going to 
leave things like that, and the house without a 
drop of water, the foreman replied, politely but 
non-committally, that he couldn't exactly say, 

36 



"You Never 
Know" 

but the Boss was coming round to see me 
shortly. 

The builder arrived later, to inform me that 
this was a most serious leak ; he didn't know 
when he had seen one precisely like it before. 
Of course, it was partly due to the pipe ; how 
any man could have called himself a plumber, 
and put in such a pipe as that ! — well, words failed 
him ! He himself was not a man to boast ot his 
own doings, but he didn't mind telling me that 
I could take up any piece of ground I liked, 
where he had laid a pipe, and see the sort he put 
underground. 

Then it transpired that the leakage was of 
such a character that he dare not proceed an 
inch farther with it without calling in the water 
company's officials. Did I authorise him to do 
so ? Of course they would charge special fees 
for " opening up the ground." I wondered where 
else they would find any to " open up " on my 
premises, seeing that by this time the whole 
estate was a gaping void ! As I saw the turn- 
cock and a variety of other gentlemen with gold 
letters embroidered on their collars, propping 
themselves up against my holly hedge, I just 
said, " Oh, yes ; do anything you please." 

And they did. 

Some of the embroidered ones then proceeded 
to dig up the whole pavement, and right out 
into the middle of the road (the leak being inside 

37 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

the garden, close beside my front door !). It 
does not take long to write about it, but I don't 
want to mislead you into thinking there was any 
feverish haste about their methods. Oh, no ! 
theirs was the calm un-hurrying work of the 
true artist ; and the builder's squad stood round 
admiringly, most careful not to interfere. 

Once again the whole lot came to a stand- 
still, and rested on any available implement ; and 
they now made a goodly crowd (I had no idea 
there were so many non-khaki men still loose), 
which was further supplemented by a policeman, 
one or two aged men who had discarded the 
workhouse for the more leisurely life that modern 
business offers, and a variety of languid young 
ladies who had been sent out on urgent errands 
from sundry local shops. 

In the lull, the chief official from the water 
company sought an interview with me, when he 
broke the news that never, in all his life, had he 
seen a more antiquated stop-cock (which, by the 
way, had been made in Germany) than the one 
I had had placed (apparently out of sheer per- 
versity or malice) in the front of my premises. 
It seems that there was no key in the whole of 
London that would turn that stop-cock ; and 
when finally it had turned it, that key could not 
be got out again. However, or whenever, I had 
managed to evade the Eye of Authority so far 
as to drop that stop-cock into the ground, he 

38 



M You Never 
Know" 

could not think ; but, at any rate, out it would 
have to come again. 

Here I managed to get in a word sideways, 
and told him that the much maligned article 
had been placed there by another squad of men 
from the same water company (after a similar 
harangue), and then duly "passed" by an 
inspector only two years ago. 

Two years ago ! he exclaimed, why, that 
inspector had been called up in the spring, and 
he was no loss to the company ! Not that he 
(the speaker) was one to say anything against 
another man's work, but if I would just come 
out and examine it for myself (it was raining 
torrents, and the stop-cock was an island in a 
watery waste) I would see that the whole affair 
was scandalous. He was the last to utter an ill- 
word about any man, more especially behind his 
back, but conscientiousness compelled him to 
state that the late inspector was about as fit to 
be in the employ of a water company as — " as 
you are, ma'am." Evidently he could think of 
no more hopelessly incapable specimen of 
humanity. 

Then it transpired that the real object of his 
call on me was to ask whether I authorised him 
to put in a new stop-cock (more special fees, of 
course). 

As I didn't seem to be left much choice in 
the matter, and I wasn't sure whether, if I left it 

39 D 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

in, after being told to take it out, the Defence of 
the Realm couldn't come and have me shot at 
dawn, I told him he had my full permission to 
put in twenty new stop-cocks if he liked ; he 
was at liberty to place them as a trimming out- 
side my garden wall, or as an edging at the kerb, 
or in a fancy zigzag design around the drive — 
anything — everything — whatsoever and howso- 
ever he pleased, so long as it enabled him, con- 
scientiously, to turn on my water again. 

(The lady next door had already said that 
while she was delighted to give me the water, 
and would even throw in all the jugs and cans 
she possessed, she really couldn't spare her 
coachman (aged . 73) for more than half-an- 
hour at each delivery, as he was the one ewe- 
lamb left them, since war claimed the rest, and 
would I kindly see that my kitchen limited their 
conversation to that extent, and returned him, 
carriage forward, within that time.) 

The Chief Official looked at me thoughtfully 
for half a moment, and then retired in silence- 
to have the door-mat he had just vacated imme- 
diately monopolised by the builder, who had 
been waiting respectfully in the background. 
(I say background, because I can't think of any 
other comprehensive term that signifies a couple 
of narrow, wobbly, muddy planks, laid across a 
well-filled moat ; ground there was none.) 

He congratulated me on having been let off 

40 



"You Never 
Know" 

by the Official so easily, and cited instances of 
owners of property he knew who had been com- 
pelled to lay miles of fresh pipes (or it seemed 
to be miles, judging by the time he took to 
describe it) as the result of inattention to Official 
Rules and Regulations regarding Stop-cocks. 
But he intimated that he had put in a good 
word for me, and besought them to deal 
leniently with me, "Knowing, ma'am, how 
generous you and the gentleman always are." 

I didn't respond to the hint. 

Just at this point he made an opportunity to 
suggest that in view of the shocking workman- 
ship revealed in the pipes outside, it would 
certainly be wise of me to have the pipes over- 
hauled all through the house, because one could 
never tell when one might burst without a 
moment's notice, and a flood of water ruin 
everything. It would only necessitate his 
taking up the floors in the dining-room and the 
study and the hall and the kitchens and the 
greenhouse next the house, and possibly a land- 
ing and bath-room and dressing-room upstairs. 
As it was, the pipes might be leaking terribly 
under the ground-floors already, disseminating 
damp and disease throughout the house (though 
the servants and I were particularly healthy at 
the time). There was a terrible amount of 
illness about, he continued ; next door to him a 
little boy had whooping-cough, and the local 

41 d 2 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

undertaker, a friend of his, had just told him 
trade had never been better; although they 
were working day and night they could hardly 
manage to execute all the orders. Of course, 
all this was primarily due to damp. 

Even as he spoke he pressed his ample foot 
so heavily on the hall floor, that but for a stout 
linoleum I feel sure he would have gone through ; 
then he said it looked to him very much as 
though dry rot had set in there already, and 
it would probably be necessary to re-floor 
the hall. 

In vain I reminded him that it had rained 
without cessation — so far as my distraught 
memory served me — for the past eighteen months, 
hence dry rot would seem little short of a miracle. 
But he only looked at me in that pitying way 
builders do when any feminine owner of property 
ventures a remark ; and he next asked if I had 
noticed signs of damp anywhere in the upstairs 
room ? After all, the upstairs pipes might be 
leaking too. 

Then I remembered, and I told him there 
undoubtedly was damp upstairs, now he men- 
tioned it, one patch about two feet square, and 
another smaller one. He was instantly alert, 
said it would certainly be one of the pipes leading 
from the cistern ; most dangerous, too, for you 
never knew when the whole cistern might be 
flowing down over everything. So I took him 

42 



"You Never 

Know" 

up and showed him the big wet patches on a 
ceiling, one dripping with a melancholy hollow 
sound into a zinc bath Abigail had placed below ; 
they were on the ceiling directly under that 
portion of the roof where his men had played 
golf each morning, the cistern being in another 
part of the house, and no pipes were anywhere 
near. 

He became silent, and I left him meditating, 
while I went down to see Virginia, who had 
come in. 

" Ursula and I have been making plans for 
you," she began, " as you seem too distracted to 
make any for yourself." 

" Distracted ! I should think I am ; so would 
you be if you had the cheerful prospect of a 
cistern emptying itself on top of you at any 
moment — that is to say, if it ever gets full again — 
and the whole of the downstairs floor to come 
up, and dry-rot in the hall, and the Law down 
on you because you've been harbouring an alien 
stop-cock, and exactly a pint of water in the 
house (apart from that which is coming in 
through the roof, of course), and whooping- 
cough and a watery grave just ahead of you, and 
the undertaker too busy to bury you ! " 

"Just listen to me," she said soothingly. 
'• You are probably not aware that you have got 
the back of your skirt fastened somewhere about 
your left hip, and the braiding that ought to be 

43 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

down the centre in front, is just at your right 
hand. Now when a woman puts on her clothes 
like that, it's a sure sign she needs a little rest. 
Therefore I'm going to take you right off to 
the cottage first thing to-morrow morning ; I've 
told Eileen to be ready ; and Ursula is coming 
in here to assume charge of affairs till such time 
as those amiable British workmen see fit to 
remove themselves." 

I protested that I was far too necessary to 
the well-being of London to be spared at the 
moment, and widespread havoc would result if 
I left town at this juncture. By way of reply, 
she asked if I would take some linen blouses 
with me, as well as my thicker things, in case 
the weather turned warmer? And then she 
summoned Abigail to help her do my packing. 

Next morning, as I was being tenderly 
placed in the one and only cab our suburb 
now possesses, the whole battalion of workmen, 
embroidered and otherwise, paused respectfully 
in the midst of further excavations and a vastly 
extended scheme of earthworks they had started 
upon ; and I saw a look on the face of the Chief 
Official that plainly said he considered they were 
removing me to an asylum none too soon 1 



44 



IV 

The Hill-Side Trail 

Eileen didn't say much on the journey, save 
an occasional burst of ecstasy when she saw a 
rabbit sitting up and washing its face. It was 
interesting to watch the Devonshire ancestry 
looking out through eyes that hitherto had seen 
little but the sordid grey-brown grime of London, 
but were now drinking in everything on that love- 
liest of English lines — and where can you equal 
the G.W.R. for beautiful scenery, combined 
with such good carriage springs, such courteous 
officials, and such always-attentive guards ? 

Owing to the accommodating character of 
the Time Table, as re-arranged by our paternal 
government, there was no Wye Valley connec- 
tion, and we had some time to wait at Chepstow. 
We went into the hotel and I ordered a meal, 
Eileen choosing fried ham and eggs as the 
greatest flight of luxury to which her mind could 
soar. I admit it was reckless extravagance for 
war-time, but Virginia and I, to say nothing of 
Eileen, were cold and hungry, and really one 
can't be held accountable for one's actions under 
such circumstances. It was a noble dish when 
it came, enough for five people. 

When Eileen had cleared her first helping, 

45 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

she merely gazed at me with a seraphic smile, 
still clutching her knife and fork. I asked if she 
would like any more ? 

" No, thank you, ma'am," she replied, in the 
most polite company style. But seeing her eyes 
still on the dish, I pressed her to have another 
slice ; I knew she would have several hours of 
keen fresh air before we could get our next 
meal. 

She leant a little towards me, her knife and 
fork held upright on the table the- while. " Well, 
it's like this," she said, in a loud stage whisper, 
that sent a ripple over the few people who were 
in the coffee room. " Does you have to pay for 
it whether you eats it or not ? " 

I nodded. 

" Then I will have some more, thank you," 
and she heaved a sigh of deep contentment. 

Perhaps it was as well Abigail didn't come ! 

The drive from the station to my cottage 
seemed to be through one long vista of sweet 
odours. 

Up to Monmouth the Wye is a tidal river, 
and the water was rushing up, backed by a 
strong wind, bringing with it, faint but unmis- 
takable, the salt tang of the sea, that seems all 
the more delicious when it has swept over woods 
and meadows and ploughed fields. 

As we left the river bank and started the 

46 



The Hill- 
side Trail 

long uphill climb, the scent of the newly- 
turned earth became more and more insistent 
as one passed stray farms and cottages, where 
the most was being made of the little bright 
sunshine. 

Although it was only the end of February, 
the brave bit of sunshine had stirred in the 
larches thoughts of coming spring, and already 
there was a suspicion of the resinous odour that 
is one of their many delightful characteristics. 

But it would be impossible to name even a 
fraction of the perfumes that were floating about 
that day: everything in Nature had responded 
to the welcome sun-warmth ; and incense was 
rising from myriads of leaf-buds, closely sheathed 
as yet ; from uncountable armies of grass blades ; 
from flowering moss, and uncurling ferns, and 
bursting acorns ; from the hundreds of thousands 
of catkins swinging on the hazels ; from prim- 
roses pushing up pink stems and yellow blossoms 
in sheltered corners, where they had been pro- 
tected by drifts of dead leaves. And probably 
the leaves of the wild hyacinths, now an inch or 
so above ground, had brought up some of the 
sweet earth-scents from below ; likewise the blue- 
green leaves of the daffodils just poking through 
the soil, and the snowdrop spears, whose white 
flowers were nodding in big patches in orchards 
and front gardens. And it is certain that some 
early violets were hiding under their leaves. 

47 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

It is noticeable that while the scents of 
autumn are often strong and bitter, the scents 
of spring are usually delicate and sweet. 

It seems to me that in time we town-dwellers 
will lose our sense of smell ! The odours that 
pervade our cities are so surpassingly abominable, 
that in sheer self-defence we have to " turn off 
our nose," if you know what I mean by that ; 
we are getting to smell as little as possible, just 
as we are getting to breathe as little as possible, 
owing to the vitiated air of the great crowded 
centres ; with the result that we seem to 
be losing our power to smell sensitively and 
keenly, as well as our power to breathe 
deeply. 

In town, the winds and the seasons seem only 
distinguishable by the grade of one's underwear. 
Outer garments are no guide, for in December 
and January one meets bare chests in the public 
thoroughfares and transparent gowns indoors ; 
while in August, with equal suitability, we trim 
a chiffon blouse with fur ! (and, by the way, it is 
instructive to recall the fact that it was a German 
Court dressmaker who first set going the inappro- 
priate, vulgar, inartistic fashion of trimming frail 
transparent dress materials with fur). 

If you live in clean fresh air, however, you 
know the seasons by their odours, and it is 
possible to distinguish with absolute certainty 

48 



The Hill- 
Side Trail 

the four winds of heaven by their scent, just as 
at sea you can smell land, or an iceberg, before 
it is anywhere within sight. 

The scent of the east wind is entirely different 
from the scent of the north wind, though both 
are cold and penetrating. In the same way, 
the scent of growing bracken — for instance — is 
entirely different from the scent of moss. But 
it takes time for the town-dweller to be able to 
distinguish between the more subtle of the 
thousand fragrances that Nature flings broad- 
cast about the countryside, so blunted is the 
sense of smell by the coarse reek of dirt, 
and petrol, and chemicals, and smoke, and over- 
breathed poisoned atmosphere that does duty for 
" air " in the modern centres of civilisation. 

Virginia was vowing that she could actually 
smell the salmon in the river, when we entered 
the village ; at the same time, the fish cart that 
makes a weekly tour of these hills was standing 
outside the " New Inn " (dated 1724). I omitted 
to draw her attention to the coincidence, because 
at that moment the lady of the post-office stepped 
out into the road and waved a telegram at our 
approaching steed. 

It was from the Head of Affairs, briefly 
stating that he had returned home, safe and 
sound, that he would soon have the little mess 
cleared up, and that I need not worry. 

49 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

Naturally, my inclination was to turn round 
there and then, get back home as soon as possible, 
and fall on his overcoat ; but Virginia reminded 
me that there was no train returning that day, 
and if there were, we should probably only cross 
one another on the road — in accordance with my 
usual method of meeting people. 

So 1 went on, a huge load having been lifted 
from my brain. I am sufficiently out-of-date 
and weak-minded to be profoundly thankful 
when the Head of Affairs steps in and re-adjusts 
my always-very-much-in-a-tangle affairs, and sets 
them on a business-like basis again : and knowing 
his capability to deal both with mind and matter, 
I didn't worry another moment, though I was 
sceptical about any speedy clearing up of the 
mess ! 

And because my heart was lighter, I seemed 
to see so many things I had not noticed before. 
In every sheltered corner shoots were showing, 
and green things starting from the earth — and 
every shoot set one's mind running on ahead to 
the things that were yet to be. I have heard 
people deplore the fact that human nature is so 
prone to anticipate events ; I have been told 
that the reason animals live such a placid, con- 
tented life, is because they only concentrate on 
the present. It may be so ; but personally, I 
wouldn't be without my anticipations, even 
though it may mean a loss of placidity. 

5o 



The Hill- 
side Trail 

The commandment is to take no anxious 
thought for the morrow ; there is nothing said 
against looking ahead for happiness. 

And a wander among our hills and along 
our lanes on a mild February day, means that 
in addition to the loveliness of early spring, you 
sense the beauty of summer — and much more 
besides. 

Every soft, grey-green shoot on the tangled 
honeysuckle stems sets you thinking of the yellow, 
rosy-tinged blossoms that will fill the long 
summer evenings with fragrance ; every crimson 
thorn and bursting leaf on the wild rose, tells of 
far-flung branches that will arch the hedges and 
flush them with pale-pink flowers later on ; the 
rosettes of foxglove leaves on the roadside banks 
remind you of the bells that will be ringing all 
along the lanes when summer sets in. 

And although the fresh green of all the 
courageous little things that have braved the 
winds and peeped forth, is exquisite enough in 
itself to satisfy that eternal craving of the 
human heart for something fresh from the Hand 
of God, yet the promise that each proclaims 
carries one into further realms of loveliness, and 
conjures up visions that can never be put down 
in black and white. 

One dimly understands how impossible was 
the task St. John set himself when he tried to 
describe the glimpse that was permitted him of 

5i 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

the City not made with hands. He wrote of 
gold, and pearls, and crystal, and inexhaustible 
gems — yet these are but cold, lifeless things, and 
the list of them leaves us unmoved. With all 
the words at his command, with all the similes 
he could muster, nothing brings us so near a 
conception of that vision as his indication of the 
Divine understanding of poor human needs, and 
the promise of a fuller, richer life, freed from 
earthly disadvantages and with nothing to sever 
us from God. 

At a time like the present, when souls 
innumerable are bearing silent sorrows, and the 
whole earth is scarred with the iron hoof of the 
Prussian beast, how much more to us than all 
the radiance of topaz, jacinth, sapphire and 
amethyst is the assurance — " There shall be no 
more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither 
shall there be any more pain . . . and there 
shall be no more curse : but the Throne of God 
and of the Lamb shall be in it ; and His servants 
shall serve Him : and they shall see His Face." 

At this season of new-bursting life we, too, 
catch a glimpse of the Beyond, and underlying 
all our delight in the material beauty of spring, 
is there not the still deeper joy arising from the 
promise it brings of greater beauty yet unful- 
filled — beauty that transcends all earthly imagin- 
ings ? The heart, whether conscious of it or not, 

52 



The HlH- 
Side Trail 

assuredly finds comfort in the reminder of the 
Resurrection that Nature whispers wheresoever 
we may turn. 

It is no mere haphazard chance that Easter 
falls about the time of the blossoming of the 
bare blackthorn bough. 

One very satisfying feature of the landscape, 
about this part of the river side, is the sight of 
the cottages, yellow-washed or white, that seem 
literally to nestle in the hollows on the hillside. 
While crowded streets hold no charm for me, 
and modern mansions leave me unmoved, there 
is something very appealing about a little home- 
stead standing in its own bit of garden, with its 
couple of beehives beside a towering sunflower, 
its few gnarled apple trees, its cow and hayrick 
maybe, if there is a bit of pasture land about the 
cottage that has been redeemed by the hardest 
of labour from the rocky hillside, its fowls 
clucking about on the fringe of the small 
holding, its wood pile, its cabbages and marrows 
and rhubarb and black currants, all according to 
the season, its hedge draped with washing — too 
white ever to have come into touch with that 
modern improvement the steam laundry. In 
looking at all this, you are looking for the most 
part at the total worldly wealth of the cottager, 
wealth, too, that has often been acquired by the 
genuine sweat of his (and her) brow. It may 

53 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

not seem much to you when you run your eye 
over it ; but it speaks of home in a way that no 
city dwelling has ever yet attained to. Here is 
not merely shelter, or just a place wherein to 
spend the night ; it is the very centre of life to 
the inmates ; the major portion of their food is 
either growing in, or running about, the garden. 
The side of bacon on the rack in the kitchen 
came from their own pigsty ; the potatoes, the 
onions, the swedes in the outhouse grew from 
their own planting ; the big yellow vegetable 
marrows hanging up in the kitchen, and the pots 
of black currant and plum jam in the cupboard, 
originated in their garden. The little plot is 
endeared to them because it provides them with 
the necessities of life, and the dwellers in the 
cottages live very close to the fundamental 
things that really matter, even though they may 
lack some of the items that over-civilization has 
ticketed the refinements of life. 

And after a winter in town spent in a stern 
wrestle for coal, potatoes, butter and milk and 
bacon and many of the other necessities of life, 
it is bliss indeed to land in this haven of suf- 
ficiency, where queues are unknown, and where 
the cow and the hen do their duty in life each 
according to her station, and the garden and the 
forests do much of the rest ! 

Even then, one has not gone to the root of 
the matter. Many of these cottages are the 

54 



The Hill- 
Side Trail 

ancestral homes of the people who live in them, 
homes that were literally wrested from the hill- 
side by the forefathers of those who are now 
living in them. And in such cases the roots go 
far deeper than the surface soil. An ancestral 
home, no matter how small, can mean more to 
the inmates than the most gorgeous pile that 
the newly-rich millionaire can raise. 

And to my mind, by no means the least of 
the many hideous sins for which the Germans 
will ultimately be called to account at the 
world's Bar of Justice, will be the violation of 
the homes, the landmarks, and the ancient birth- 
rights of unoffending peoples, while they them- 
selves sat smug and sanctimonious under their 
own vines and fig trees, self-complacent in the 
knowledge that they were protected from 
deserved retribution by their devil- driven guns. 

When at last we reached the little white 
gate, leading into the cottage garden, we stood 
for a moment, as we always do, and looked at 
the peak beyond peak, and the deep lying 
valleys. 

Sloping away from our very feet were our 
own orchards and coppices, the bright lichen on 
the twisted old apple trees showing almost a 
blue-green against the purple of the bare birch 
tree branches still lower down. 

The sun was dropping behind the larches 

55 E 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

that ridged the opposite hills. Birds everywhere 
were explaining to each other that they must — 
they really must — set about house-hunting the 
very first thing in the morning. 

Out in the lane, the mountain spring was 
over-full and singing a riotous song of jubilation 
as it tumbled out of the little wooden trough 
into the pool below, and tore away down into 
the valley. 

" It's a marvellous world," said Virginia as 
we gazed at the vast panorama that stretched 
before us ; and then she added, " Do you know, 
I've come to the conclusion that I prefer a 
spring of water outside the gate to all the stop- 
cocks and water-mains in the world." 

Next morning a letter from the Head of 
Affairs skipped airily over the episode of his 
meeting with the builder, concentrating on the 
point that I was to stay where I was, as he 
would join me in a few days. But Ursula 
supplied the missing details. 

"After I saw you off at Paddington," she 
wrote, " I hurried back as fast as I could ; I felt 
that I should at least like to see if the four 
outside walls remained of what was once your 
happy home. Because, though we didn't let 
you know, the builder confided to me, as you 
were leaving, that he had discovered the whole 
front of the house was in a most shocking 

56 



The Hill- 
Side Trail 

condition, necessitating prompt ' shoring-up 
(whatever that may mean), and requiring to be 
underpinned immediately. But by the time I 
reached the place where your gates ought to have 
been — but weren't — I found the Head of Affairs 
(he'd sent a wire as soon as he landed in 
England, but it evidently never reached you) 
bestowing as much gratuitous eloquence on the 
builder and the Water Company as would have 
run an election. What did he say ? Why, 
everything that is in the English language, and 
in a hundred different keys ! Sometimes he 
singled out some separate ' official,' and gave it 
him, personally, in considerable detail. 

" His analysis of the private character of the 
builder was nothing short of an epic ; and as for 
the turncock ! — what he said about turncocks 
was a revelation to an unsuspecting ratepayer 
like myself — No, it might be as well not to 
repeat it ; but I feel sure that turncock won't 
call, with a long double knock, for a Christmas- 
box next December. Indeed, his remarks on 
the mental capacity of every single person 
employed by the Water Company lead me to 
think that your family won't be really populai 
with the Metropolitan Water Board for some 
time to come ! 

"And then, when he had said everything 
that could possibly be said about each man 
standing there, and about water and pipes and 

57 E 2 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

stopcocks and gravel and pavement and suchlike 
things, he announced his intention of going on 
the roof to inspect where the builder proposed 
to put the pile of new slates. 

" Now it's a funny thing, but that builder was 
not nearly so pressing that he should go up and 
see for himself, as he was when talking to you. 
But he insisted, and once up, he started all over 
again, and made such forceful comments on the 
subject of slates — and more especially the men 
who put on the slates — that I was afraid they 
would come through the roof. 

" Well, I don't think I ever saw a more 
wilted-looking blossom than that builder when 
he was finally had inside and given his marching 
orders. Even before the two had descended 
from the roof, the embroidered men were 
hurriedly toppling the earth back into the 
trenches. I believe they've had twenty-four 
hours allowed them to get things put to rights 
again. And I think they will hurry, for they 
don't seem anxious for more of the master's 
society than is absolutely necessary. At any 
rate, he seemed quite able to manage matters 
without any assistance from me, and so I left it 
in his hands, and I'm coming down by the 
next train." 



58 



Just Outside the 
Back-Door 

There is one spot in the Flower-Patch that is 
loved by grown-ups as well as birds. It is the 
little grotto that is just outside the cottage back- 
door. It has made itself by making the best of 
circumstances. Can I describe it so that you 
will see it, I wonder ? 

First there comes a narrow garden bed, 
full of old-fashioned flowers — Bee-balm, Jacob's 
Ladder, and Solomon's Seal ; then a rough stone 
wall about two feet high keeps the earth above 
from tumbling down on to the narrow bed below. 
The whole of the garden being on a steeply 
sloping hillside, the earth has to be propped up 
at intervals by these lovely little ranks of natural 
rockery, planted by Nature with hart's-tongue 
and a variety of other little ferns, with mother- 
of-millions and creeping ivy, with stone-crop and 
house-leeks. How do the things get there ? How 
do they plant themselves ? Isn't it marvellous 
this unending gardening of Nature ! 

On a level with the top of the low wall is 
another garden bed. You see the ground is rising, 
rising up to the clouds all the time at the back 

59 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

of the cottage, just as it is falling, falling down 
to the river in the valley all the time in front of 
the cottage. This next terrace bed loses itself 
entirely in a miniature wild wood and drops 
down into a tiny dell, just big enough for a 
couple of small children to give a tea-party to 
the fairies in. ^ 

Here it is that the beauty of the whole place 
seems to climax. The other side of the dell is 
bounded by a large grey boulder, about six feet 
high, flanked by a few smaller ones tumbling 
about at various angles. The stone was too big 
for the original gardener to move, so he wisely 
left it where it was. They often do that on 
these hills. I know one cottage that has a most 
substantial stone table in the centre of the 
kitchen. It is just a huge stone that was too 
big to move by ordinary methods when they 
erected the cottage, and so they simply left it, 
and built the kitchen round it. 

But my boulder in the grotto is not so much 
for use as for beauty. True, it supports a plum 
tree that springs up from behind it, just outside 
the orchard rails. But the way Nature has 
festooned that rock is worth going a long way 
to study. From the ground at one side springs 
a wild rose with stout stems that grow fairly 
straight and erect, considering it is a wild rose, 
and this sends out long curved and arched sprays, 
dotted with pink blossoms. 

60 



Just Outside 
the Back-Door 

At the other side is a yellow jasmine, evidently 
a stray from the garden. 

The stone itself is thickly covered with moss, 
small-leaved ivy (and isn't small-leaved ivy lovely 
in its colouring very often, in the early months 
of the year, some brown and yellow, some red 
and green ?) and little ferns, till scarcely a trace 
of the grey stone can be seen, and where it does 
push through it is splashed with milky-green 
lichen. 

Then wandering over all is a wealth of honey- 
suckle that catches hold of everything impartially, 
and twines itself in all directions. At the base 
of the precipitous boulder the grass is thick and 
green ; violets, the big purple-blue scented sort, 
cluster all around the corners, and hold up rich- 
looking blossoms ; primroses laugh out in the 
sunshine ; snowdrops dingle their bells to a 
delightful melody, if only our ears were more 
delicately tuned to catch the music; daffodils 
blow their own trumpets above their clumps of 
blue-green leaves; the ground-ivy creeps and 
creeps and lights up the green with its lovely 
blue flowers that have never received half the 
praise that is their due. And in a damp spot 
there is a mass of blue forget-me-nots, with one 
clump that is pure white. 

Large ferns send up giant fronds to make 
cool shadows at one end. Tiny ferns busy them- 
selves with the decoration of odd corners. A 

61 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

hazel bush reaches over and joins hands with the 
plum tree, to form a fitting roof to so lovely a 
dell ; as I write — in February — it is a mass of 
fluttering catkins, and the plum tree is talking 
about shaking out a few flowers. But without 
these the place is already full of blossoms. 

In a month or six weeks the old trees in the 
orchard behind will be like bouquets of pink and 
white blossoms. 

You approach the grotto by a tiny path, 
about wide enough for a child ; the entrance to 
the path is marked by a stunted old bush of 
lavender at one side, and a grey-green clump of 
sage at the other. They stand, with stems 
twisted and rugged like gnomes, guarding the 
entrance to the fairy's playground ; but if you 
rub them the right way they send up a lovely 
fragrance, and then you know you are admitted 
to the freedom of the enchanted spot. 

It is so sheltered in this corner, and protected 
from the cold winds by the high hill behind, that 
even the ferns from last year are green and 
fresh-looking, you would think there had not 
been any winter here. And the brambles thai 
clamber over the orchard rail — assuring the world 
at large that they are a highly respectable 
orchard-grown fruit tree, and not a wild weed — 
are still green and crimson and a rich purple 
with the lovely tints of last autumn. 

The birds are fond of this grotto, and other 

62 



Just Outside 
the Back-Door 

wild things have found it out. Last summer, 
when the boulder seemed to be dripping with 
large juicy crimson honeysuckle berries, I watched 
a big bullfinch gorging to his heart's content, his 
red waistcoat mingling well with the red of the 
berries. Mrs. Bullfinch was also there, in her 
less obtrusive grey and browny-black dress, and 
she had a couple of youngsters too. But do 
you think the father had any intention of sharing 
the delicacies ? Not a bit of it ! Every time 
his wife approached from the rear surreptitiously 
to snatch a berry, he turned round and drove 
her off (I really could have pardoned her if she 
had joined the suffragettes on the spot). She 
ranged her family along the orchard rail just 
above, and made various attempts to forage for 
them. But it was no use. So she took up her 
position beside the family on the rail and waited 
patiently, making plaintive sounds the while, 
till Mr. Bully had stuffed to repletion and flew 
away. I was glad there were a few hundred 
berries still left for the family. And didn't they 
have a good time ! 

Just now the blue tits are very busy about 
the fruit trees, and a robin comes out from some- 
where in the grotto at unexpected moments and 
stands motionless on a stone, with a bright eye 
cocked up inquiringly at the human intruder. 
I fancy he has chosen it for his summer residence. 

A squirrel is very attached to this part of 

63 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

the garden. Sometimes one sees him, when the 
nuts are ripe, scurrying along the orchard rail in 
ever such a hurry, his chestnut-red tail bigger 
than himself. There are specially good nuts on 
that hazel-tree. 

This morning I went out of the back-door, 
to find a large rabbit sitting and sunning himself 
at his ease among the snowdrops and violets in 
the little dell — within a yard of the door. 

The weather has been like April to-day, 
brilliant sunshine and heavy showers. Suddenly 
the sky behind the cottage was lit up with a 
rainbow — a glorious span of colour that seemed 
to be resting on the hill-top. Then it dropped 
a bit lower at one end, and the big pine trees 
that stand higher up at the top of the orchard 
looked most majestic against it. Lower it 
seemed to drop, and then I distinctly saw the 
place where it touched the ground. You know 
they say there is a pot of gold buried at the ~end 
of the rainbow — where do you think that rain- 
bow pointed ? Why, straight at my fairy dell ! 
So I know there is gold buried under that 
boulder, and that is why there is always sunshine 
peeping through the green ; first it comes out in 
the yellow jasmine, then it flares in the daffodils, 
later you find it in the dancing buttercups and 
in the lovely honeysuckle, finally it waves to 
you a bright " Good-bye, Summer," in the clump 
of golden-rod that is near the entrance. 

64 



VI 

Dwellers in the 

Flower-Patch 

February on our hills may be anything — from 
September round to May. Sometimes it is 
mild and sunny and sweet with the scent of 
newly-turned earth ; or it may be bitingly cold, 
and very bleak in the exposed parts, with a 
shivery-ness even in the valleys. You just take 
your chance, sure, at least, of fresh air, peace — 
and the birds. 

That.is one of the perennial joys of the place ; 
summer or winter you know there will be a host 
of little fluttering things all ready to welcome 
you as a friend, if you will but show the least 
bit of friendliness towards them. - 

Not that their greeting is entirely cordial 
when you arrive. The starlings are probably 
the first to see you ; they are arrant busybodies, 
and seem to spend most of their time retailing 
gossip from the ridge of the red-tiled roof. No 
wonder their nests are the lazy make-shifts 
they are ! 

A perfect scandal to the bird world, Mrs. 
Missel-Thrush has told me ; it's a wonder the 
sanitary authorities don't insist on their being 
pulled down and rebuilt ! Anything, stuffed in 

65 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

anywhere ; a handful of straw in the chimney ; 
dried grass and oddments of rubbish collected in 
a corner under the tiles ; you wouldn't think any 
self-respecting egg would consent to be hatched 
out in such a nest ! — certainly no young thrush 
would put up with so disreputable a nursery. 
But then, as we all know, the thrushes come of 
very good family ; whereas the starlings ! — well 
— not that one would say a word against one's 
neighbours, but since everyone can see and hear 
it for themselves, the starlings are simply 
" impossible." 

But the starlings don't seem to be the least 
bit worried by the cold shoulder of the more 
exclusive residents ; they gabble and bawl the 
whole day long, from the top of the roof, while 
the one who has managed to secure the apex of 
the weathercock is positively insulting. And 
the moment we turn into the little white gate, 
they begin. 

" See who's down there ? I say, everybody, 
look ! There's that wretched white dog again ! 
Remember what a perfect nuisance he was last 
August, when we'd just got the youngsters out 
of the nest ? We were afraid every moment 
lest he would start to climb the trees like their 
old cat used to. Hi ! there, you on the barn- 
roof I Have you heard the news?" Shriek, 
shriek ! chatter, chatter, chatter ! So they go 
on for hours at a time. 

66 



Dwellers in the 
Flower-Patch 

Then policeman-robin arrives. "What's all 
this noise about ? " he demands, from the post of 
the gate leading into the upper orchard. " Oh, 
good gracious ! it's that horrid white dog again ! 
Nearly shoved his nose right into our nest in the 
woodruff bank last year ! Chit ! chit ! chit ! 
But don't you worry, my dear " (this to the lady 
he has just married) ; " I'll drive him away ; you 
can trust to me," and he flicks his conceited 
little tail, and flies to the top of a tree stump 
near by, still calling out his " Chit ! chit ! chit ! " 
in severe reprimand. 

Next the blackbird, hunting for a little fresh 
meat among the grey, mossed-over stones that 
edge the garden beds, raises his head and cranes 
his neck above the overhanging heart's-ease 
trails, and the foliage of the pinks, to see what 
the commotion is all about. 

" I say, Martha ! " (to the demure body in 
brown, who has been meekly tracking along 
behind him), " there's that terror of a dog again ! 
Recollect when he was here last year ? Never a 
chance to enjoy a snail in peace ; before you'd 
given the shell more than one tap on the stone, 
down he'd rush. Here he comes now ! Slip 
along quick to the laurels. I say, that was a 
near shave ! Chut ! chut ! chut ! Go away ! 
What business have you to come here disturbing 
respectable old inhabitants like us ? " 

And so the hubbub continues, while the 

67 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

small white dog with the brown ears trots in a 
business-like manner all over the place, making 
sure that every corner-stone, and bush, and 
gate-post is just where he left it last time. And 
having ascertained that the universe is still 
intact, he sets off to a particular spot in the 
lower orchard, sniffs about till he finds the iden- 
tical tuft of grass he is searching for ; whereupon 
he eats, and eats, at the long green blades, much 
in the same way as we fall on the young lettuces, 
or the black currants, or whatever else may be 
in season when we come down. Though why 
this particular tuft of grass should be the only 
one he selects out of the acres and acres at his 
disposal, is always a mystery to us. Yet he 
never forgets it ; straight for that small patch in 
the middle of the big orchard he makes, once he 
has done his tour of inspection round the estate. 

Before I have been in the house half-an-hour, 
I start making overtures to the birds, and they 
immediately respond. I proceed by way of the 
bird-board. 

This may need explanation. 

Outside one of the living-room windows 1 
have established a board that projects about a 
foot beyond the wide window-ledge. At first I 
had it resting on the window-ledge, but I found 
that the birds were down out of sight, when 
they came up to feed, hidden by the sash and 

68 



Dwellers in the 
F 1 ower-Patch 

window-frame. Therefore I had it raised to 
bring it exactly on a level with the glass. It 
is fixed securely on supports, so that it won't 
blow away, neither would a flock of jays and 
wood-pigeons overbalance it. A couple of stout 
bits of tree branches have been fixed upright at 
the sides ; these are very popular, as they make 
the board look less bare, more tree-like and 
familiar to the birds. They love to alight on 
a branch, before going down to feed, and they 
often return to the branch when they have eaten 
their fill, saucing their relations and daring them 
to touch a morsel of the food, which each bird 
seems to consider its own exclusive property ! 
Strips of narrow lath have been nailed to the 
outside edges of the board, projecting about 
an inch above the level of the board. This 
wooden rim saves the food from rolling off, or 
blowing away too easily ; it also gives the birds 
a little perch that they love to stand on while 
they run their eyes over the menu. 

On this board — in times of plenty — go 
crumbs, seed, rolled oats, maize, peas, little bits 
of fat or suet, anything in fact that birds will 
eat ; and if the weather be cold, a lump of suet 
will be lashed to each branch, for the tits to 
peck at, with occasional bunches of bacon rind, 
hanging like tassels. 

In war-time the birds just have to take what 
they can get. 

69 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

Within twenty-four hours of our arrival, the 
birds have re-discovered their food board, and 
over they come, from garden and adjoining 
orchards and woods, with such a whirring of 
wings, directly they hear the window being 
opened. In the apple tree, in the laburnum tree 
in the damson tree they wait, and the moment I 
move away from the window, down they pounce, 
and such a squabbling and chatter and succes- 
sion of arguments takes place. In a few days' 
time, as they get more used to me, they flutter 
down before I have even spread out their meal, 
perching on the edge of the board and eyeing 
me with the most audacious nerve. The robin 
is positively impudent in his demand that I 
should hurry up ! 

And it is not longer than a week before they 
come hopping right into the room, hunting all 
over the breakfast table if the window be left 
open, and I have not been down sufficiently 
early to meet their requirements. If the days 
are cold, and outside food scarce, they tap the 
window sharply with their beaks, to call attention 
to their needs, while plaintive, appealing little 
faces look anxiously at me. 

And oh, they are such a pretty little crowd. 
One has no idea what clear, beautifully bright 
colour our British birds can show, unless one 
has seen them right away from the taint of 

70 



Dwellers in the 
Flower-Patch 

smoke and grime. Town environments, be they 
ever so rural, are always reminiscent of the 
chimneys in the distance, or the railways that 
cut them up. But on these hills, where cottage 
chimneys are very few and far between, and 
what smoke there is, is usually wood smoke, 
some of the birds are exceedingly lovely. 

There is the great-tit, brilliantly yellow as a 
daffodil, with an admixture of black velvet and 
pure white ; he and his wife quite take your 
breath away as they splash down, out of space, 
and flitter about among the sober thrushes and 
darker blackbirds. And when, in the summer, 
they bring their babies along with them, I 
don't think there is a prettier sight in creation 
than the little bluey-grey balls of fluff, that 
peck daintily at the bits of suet, and then hiss 
vigorously and scold at the big wasps that come 
and steal it from under their very beaks ! So 
tame and innocent of fear they are, that they 
come into the room whenever the window is left 
open ; and mother and father follow them, quite 
as trustfully. 

Then again, we all think we know the blue- 
tit ; but when you see him in the wilds he is a 
very different-looking morsel from the dirty- 
blue apology you meet nearer town. On the 
bird-board, he is almost metallic in the bright- 
ness of his blue-green feathers, and the lovely 
tint of yellow. He raises his crest feathers, with 

71 F 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

pleasure, when he sees the suet on the branch ; 
and over the little acrobat goes, hanging head 
downwards or clinging with one tiny claw to a 
piece of twig ; it is all one to him, he swings 
about like a bright enamel pendant. 

The male chaffinch is another very gay little 
fellow, with his warm red and pretty blue and 
yellow. fHe calls "Spink, spink," in clear 
penetrating notes, as he lands on the board ; and 
up comes his wife — one of the most shapely and 
elegant of all the small birds, with the dearest 
little face ! 

Mr. and Mrs. Bullfinch invariably come 
together, unless she is detained at home with the 
family. They perch on the edge of the drinking 
saucer, side by side, like a pair of solemn 
paroquets; he, very beautiful in crimson and 
black velvet ; she, decidedly more homely and 
nondescript. 

But I can't go through the whole list, there 
is such a crowd — including a little flock of eight 
goldfinches that for two winters have always 
been about the garden together. 

Jays, with their handsome wing feathers and 
ugly, very ugly, mouths, swoop down continually, 
scaring the small birds to vanishing point, and 
gobbling up the food by the shovelful ! Magpies 
in plenty perch on the garden rails, but only 
once has one come to the board when I have 
been there, and then he got his tail so mixed up 

72 



Dwellers in the 
Flower-Patch 

with the decorative branches, that he had the 
fright of his life, and never repeated the 
adventure. 

Wood pigeons are regular in their attendance, 
when other food is scarce. Oh, certainly, I 
know all that is to be said on the subject of 
encouraging wood pigeons ! But — have you 
ever studied the peacock and wine-colour gleam 
on their necks, when unsmirched by smoke or 
grime ? If so, you will understand my admira- 
tion for them. And, in any case, ours isn't a 
farming area ; there is no corn here for them to 
squander, and although they sigh all summer 
long, in the fir trees, " Take two pears, Tommy ! 
Take two pears, Tommy ! — do ! " there are very 
few pears available that Tommy would even look 
at ; most that grow in the orchards around are 
the harsh, bitter variety, used for making the 
drink known as " perry " (the pear equivalent of 
apple cider). 

The wood pigeons have helped me back to 
health and strength many a time, with their soft 
crooning in the larches, and their quiet talk of 
things above the petty strife and noisy clamour 
of the struggling market place. Therefore, I 
don't say them nay, in times of plenty, if I have 
a little to spare, and they chance to need it. 

Of all the bird family, however, I think the 
coal-tits are our favourites — and there are such a 

73 f 2 



Between the Larch 
woods and the Weir 

quantity of them. Coal-tits always abound in 
the neighbourhood of larch woods and birches, 
which accounts for the numbers that dart about 
my garden ; there are birch woods lower down 
the hill below the cottage, as well as the larch 
woods up above ; and both birch and larch 
cluster thick down one side of the house to 
shield it from the cold winds. 

Though the coal-tit is not brightly-coloured, 
like its relations, there is something very 
delightful about his soft grey garb, and his 
black head ^vith its light grey or nearly white 
streak down the back. Like the robin, he 
always looks well-tailored, not a feather out of 
place, not a draggled filament anywhere. And 
he is so extraordinarily alert ; he doesn't seem to 
give himself time to fly, he darts and dives and 
flits all over the place, and seems to have an 
appetite proportionately equal to that of the 
proverbial alderman. 

Down he dives the minute the food appears. 
He stands very erect on his slim little legs (no 
squatting down on his breast bone, as the 
sparrows and even the chaffinches often do) ; 
he cocks his head from side to side, promptly 
decides on the largest lump of fat he can find ; 
seizes it, and flies up into a big fir tree, where, 
apparently, he bolts the whole lump instan- 
taneously ! At any rate, before you have time 
to see where he alighted, down he dives, seizes 

74 



Dwellers In the 
Flower-Patch 

another big piece, and off he goes again. He 
seems to eat twice his own size in suet in a few 
minutes ! But I conclude he must drop some 
of it, though I've never been able to prove it. 
And the theory of a nestful of hungry beaks 
doesn't always explain his voraciousness ; for he 
disposes of just as much in the winter as in 
nesting time. 

Yet, in spite of his appetite, we love him, for 
he is so tiny and so wonderfully alert ; one 
marvels how so much energy can be boxed up 
in such a small body. 

Visitors who have never had much to do 
with birds at close quarters — and the birds may 
be said to be part of the family at this cottage, 
for they live with us and meal with us — are 
usually surprised at the differences and the 
distinctiveness of their various personalities. 

The robin not only adopts you at once, but 
he proceeds to supervise your every action, and 
instals himself as your personal attendant. 
Probably this is all the more emphasized by the 
fact that he will not allow any rival to encroach 
on his particular territory. Most birds seem to 
peg out a claim at the beginning of the season, 
and to resent, more or less, the intrusion of any 
other of its own kind. Swallows and sparrows 
and rooks, and a few others, build in colonies, 
but the majority of birds seem to prefer a little 

75 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

domain each to himself, wife and family, and 
you will find one pair of blackbirds driving 
another from the laurel bush they have chosen, 
or chasing strangers from the particular garden 
path they call their own. 

Though starlings feed — and chatter — in flocks, 
one particular pair of starlings make it their 
business to oust any other starling that they find 
on the bird board. 

But the robin can be a perfect terror in the 
way he seeks to domineer over the whole earth. 
It is a very large area that he marks off for his 
individual own, and woe betide any other robin 
who tries to defy him — unless he be the stronger 
of the two. One of our robins killed his own 
wife (we conclude, as she disappeared, after a 
series of thrashings he gave her daily !), and then 
he injured the wing of one of his own youngsters, 
because we had petted them, and given them 
food inside the living room. 

The father used to hide behind a stone down 
on the garden bed, and watch as his family — the 
mother and two babies — nervously and timidly 
approached the bird-board, looking round 
anxiously lest father should see ! Then, when 
they started to feed, he would hiss out the 
dreadfullest of wicked words at them, and fling 
himself on them, bashing them with his beak — 
a positive little fury. 

So one day I put some food on the table 

76 



Dwellers in the 
F lower-Patch 

inside the room, and the down-trodden ones 
hopped in. I shut the window before the irate 
father could follow them. He seemed demented 
with rage, when he saw them feeding and 
couldn't get at them ; he literally stamped his 
foot, and viciously tossed off all the pieces of 
food that were on the board, flinging them to 
the ground in a most highly-glazed specimen of 
temper ! 

I let the family out by a side window, 
instead of the bird-board window, and they 
evaded their loving and affectionate relative for 
a little while. But he found them at last ; and 
went for his wife, while the children cheeped 
forlornly among the pansies in the border. We 
never saw her again, poor, plucky little soul ; 
and one of the youngsters dragged a broken 
wing along the path next day, explaining to me, 
pitifully, that he couldn't possibly get up to the 
bird-board now, neither could he find mother 
anywhere. 

I took him in, and tried to save his life — but 
it was no use. With all our knowledge and 
skill and discoveries and training, what clumsy, 
inadequate creatures we are in comparison with 
a little mother bird ! 

Less harrowing was the incident of a robin 
who, on one occasion, came inside, in order to 
get more than his share of provender if pos- 

77 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

sible, when he was suddenly startled by the dog 
running into the room. Instead of flying 
through the window that was open, he made 
for a closed one, banging his head with such 
force against the glass that the blow stunned 
him, and he fell senseless to the ground. 

I picked him up, and tried all the restoratives 
I could think of, a drop of water on his beak, a 
cold splash on his head, but to no purpose ; he 
lay, just a tiny handful of beautiful feathers, in 
my hand ; so light, so helpless, so altogether 
pathetic — it hurt me badly to gaze at the small 
mite that only the minute before had been 
talking to me, and cheeking me, and liking me 
(yes, I am sure he did), and I unable now to do 
a thing to bring back the gaiety and life and 
sparkle to the poor still body. 

I felt sure he was dead, yet to give him every 
chance, I placed him in a nest of soft flannel 
out on the window-ledge ; the day was warm, 
but there was a breeze that might perhaps revive 
him. And as a last offering — one does so try to 
do all one can ! — I put a tempting piece of suet 
near his inanimate beak. And how unnatural it 
seemed to see that suet remain untouched in his 
vicinity ! 

I took my work and sat where I could see 
if he so much as stirred a claw. But for a 
quarter of an hour there wasn't the slightest 
sign of movement, except when the wind gently 

78 



Dwellers in the 
Flower-Patch 

ruffled his feathers — and how exquisite they 
were, the blue so unlike the ordinary blue, the 
red much more red than the London robins, and 
the bronze-brown so glinting. 

At last I decided it was useless to watch any 
longer, for his eyelids had never so much as 
flickered. 

I was folding up my work, when a big 
yellow tit flew on to the window ledge, hopped 
over inquiringly to the suet, and started to 
sample it. In an instant up jumped the corpse, 
and with an angry " Chit ! chit ! " hurled him- 
self at the interloper ; and the last I saw of him 
was chasing the yellow tit all across the garden. 

Don't ask me to explain ; I am only telling 
you what happened under my own eyes. 

Yes, robin pere can be a villain ; he also can 
be the extreme reverse. Like the majority of 
the rest of us, he shows to the most amiable 
advantage when there is no rival to distract 
public admiration. So long as he is the centre, 
as well as the beginning and the end, of the bird 
universe, he is sweetness itself. 

No other bird is so keenly alive to all my 
comings and goings. It doesn't matter how 
fully occupied he may be with the settlement of 
every other bird's affairs, I have but to go up 
the garden with fork or spade or broom, and 
before I have turned half-a-dozen clods, or 

.. . 79 



Between the Larch- % 
woods and the Weir * 

pulled out a handful of weeds, I am conscious of 
a soft streak through the air, though 1 hardly 
see it ; there he sits on a low branch of a currant 
bush close to my hand, or stands motionless on 
an edging stone at my very feet. If I take no 
notice of him, in all probability he starts a 
Whisper Song to call attention to himself. 

Have you ever heard this ? It suggests 
nothing so much as elf-land music ; I know no 
song exactly like it. You seem to hear a bird 
warbling most delightfully, but it is far, far 
away. You raise your eyes, and scan the trees 
around, but no singing bird can you discover ; 
you decide it must be farther off— but what a 
haunting charm there is about it. 

Then it ceases. Mr. "Robin is hoping that 
you have understood what he has been saying. 
But no, the obtuse human just goes on weeding 
the path as before ; so the Whisper Song starts 
again. This time you think it resembles a very 
mellow musical box shut up in some distant 
room. 

Suddenly you see him, singing straight at 
you, so close to your hand that it gives you quite 
an uncanny feeling for the moment; and you 
wonder : Who is he — what is he — that he should 
be saying all this to me, obviously to me, and to 
no one else but me ? 

Robin doesn't encourage you in daydreams, 
however, he means business ; and once he sees 

80 



Dwellers In the 
Flower-Patch 

that he has secured your undivided attention, he 
discards the Whisper Song and comes to the 
point. Down on to the path he drops, seizes an 
unwary worm that your energy has brought to 
light ; then tosses it over scornfully and flirts a 
contemptuous tail, which says as plainly as any 
tale that was ever told, " Is that the best worm 
you can offer a gentleman ? Pouf ! " 

He eats it nevertheless. 

And so he follows me round the place ; I 
never garden alone. If at first I cannot see 
him, 1 whistle a quiet call ; invariably I hear the 
Whisper Song in response, and there he is — 
waiting, watching, missing nothing, with his 
tiny throat feathers vibrating and quivering as 
he strives to let me into bird-land secrets, and 
tells me lots and lots of wonderful things that as 
yet I am too dull-witted to understand. 

Then there are the blackbirds — for individu- 
ality they are hard to beat ; though I admit they 
are always reproving someone or something, with 
their " Chutter, chut, chut ! " 

I never knew a bird with as many grudges 
and grievances as Augustus seems to have. He 
" chut-chuts " at me if I'm late with his break- 
fast, at Abigail when she ventures to gather a 
few raspberries, at the dog whenever he sees 
him, at the little colt for scampering down the 
meadow, at the cuckoo when his voice breaks — 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

I've heard him get up after all the family had 
gone to bed, and roundly abuse a poor July 
cuckoo who had developed a bad stutter — and 
every night about sundown he admonishes the 
world in general, from his pulpit in a pine, 
despite the fact that Martha has put the children 
to bed and is trying to get them to sleep, and 
that every other masculine blackbird for acres 
round is discoursing on the same subject. 

But the poor thing has had his troubles. 
The first time we really distinguished Augustus 
and Martha (who monopolise my bedroom 
window ledge, and the pinks and pansy border) 
from Claude and Juliet (who patronise the 
biggest mountain ash, and consider the white 
and red currants and the snails in the snap- 
dragon bed their particular perquisites) was 
when the former (that means Augustus and 
Martha, you know) built in the old plum tree 
that hangs partly over the green and gold 
grotto. Though it has plenty of snowy-white 
flowers on its dark stems in the spring, it has 
been too neglected to produce much fruit ; 
but it makes up in flowering ivy and heavenly- 
scented honeysuckle for any other deficiencies. 
And it was in this tangled mass of loveliness 
that Augustus and Martha first set up house- 
keeping. (Augustus being always recognizable 
by reason of one grey feather. ) 

They chose it with much circumspection 

82 



Dwellers in the 
Flower-Patch 

— Martha with an eye to the easy building 
facilities offered by strands of tough woodbine, 
and sturdy ivy cables, combined with stout 
plum branches ; Augustus with his main eye 
focussed on the bird-board, and the other on the 
accessibility of the bird-bath (originally a sheep- 
trough hollowed out of a block of rough stone, 
over which moss and small ivy are now trailing). 

Altogether it was a most desirable site for a 
young couple. They were in full view of the 
side window in the living room, and we watched 
them flying in and out, to and fro, with beaks 
laden with grass and straw and similar materials 
for household decorations. 

Later on, when two youngsters were hatched, 
there were the same endless journeyings, the 
same loaded beaks. But here Augustus's per- 
spicacity stood him in good stead ; it was a very 
short flight from the plum tree down to the 
bird-board, and the pair must have nearly worn 
the air out, judging by the number of times 
they made the trip ! 

The tragedy happened when the youngsters 
were nearly ready to leave the nest. And the 
sad part of it was that we saw it all enacted before 
our eyes, and yet were powerless to prevent it. 

We had just sat down to our mid-day meal ; 
the day seemed all blue sky and bright flowers 
and gladdening sunshine — the very last day one 
ought to have met trouble. 

83 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

Augustus had gone off to give Claude a 
piece of his mind that must have been owing for 
some time, judging by the heat and length oi 
his harangue ; Martha was gathering up the 
biggest mouthful she could manage (and it is 
astonishing how they will collect several pieces 
ot bread, a piece of fat and a flake of oatmeal, 
packing it up securely in their beak, in order to 
carry it safely). 

I saw a big bird swoop down on to the 
branch beside the nest ; but big birds are so 
plentiful with us, it conveyed nothing out of the 
ordinary to me. It looked like a shrike, but I 
couldn't be certain. Everything happened so 
quickly. It seized one of the little ones, killed 
it outright with one vicious toss, while the 
other baby called out in wild terror. 

In far less time than it takes me to write this, 
the whole air seemed teeming with screaming 
blackbirds, dozens of them. They went for the 
murderer, trying to attack him with their beaks ; 
but he flew off into the woods, followed by a 
crowd of threatening and bewailing birds ; one 
could hear them in the distance when they were 
no longer in sight. 

Of course we had all rushed out into the 
garden ; but we could do nothing ; the nest was 
too high up to be reached without a ladder. 

Then an unusual silence fell over the 
garden ; the majority of the birds having joined 

84 



Dwellers in the 
Flower-Patch 

the crowd of pursuers. It is strange how 
we all bury our hatchets in face of a common 
danger I 

It seemed almost death-like for the moment, 
till, from the top of a larch, a chaffinch bubbled 
forth. At least there was one happy bird left. 
Then I bethought me about baby-blackbird No. 2. 
The villain had only carried off one. We got a 
ladder, but no bird was in the nest ! 

We decided it must have fallen out in the 
scrimmage, and searched carefully. After a 
while we found it, helpless and terrified, among 
the ferns, just where it had fallen, in the grotto. 

As it didn't seem able to walk or fly, we left 
it there, and sat down to watch events. Back 
came poor Martha presently. She looked in 
the nest, then flew distractedly about. But 1 
suppose the baby was too dazed with fright to 
do a thing, at any rate it never uttered a sound 
or call ; and the distressed mother flew off again 
to the woods on her hopeless quest. 

We remained on watch the whole afternoon 
and evening ; but neither parent returned. 
Then I began to get anxious. I put a little 
food near the frightened crouching thing, but 
it took no notice. Only once it gave a piteous 
cry ; how I wished it would keep it up ! That 
at least would surely reach the mother in time. 
But it didn't repeat the call. 

At last we had to go in, because it .was 

*5 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

getting dark, and every bird but our poor little 
baby was safely in bed. We tried to console 
ourselves by saying that it would probably be 
all right, and it was wonderful how birds sur- 
vived all sorts of dangers. But, all the same, 
we none of us believed we should ever see him 
again ; and we shook our heads silently next 
morning, when we found an empty space under 
the ferns, where we had left him overnight. 

During the day, my suspicions were aroused 
by the fact that Augustus returned again and 
again to the bird-board and stuffed his beak full 
of provender, which he carried off in the good 
old way. But the moment I tried to follow 
him, he merely went into a near-by tree, and 
tried to say " Chut ! chut ! " with his mouth full ! 

It took me all the afternoon, and used up all 
the stealth and cautiousness I possess, to track 
him. He would not fly any more than he could 
help; he kept right down on the ground, 
running along with his head slightly lowered, 
keeping close to the shadow of the wall, slipping 
under hedges and low growths, always looking 
about from side to side, standing stock still 
when he scented danger — in this way he got up 
the hill, and right across a field, to where a big 
Wellingtonia stands like a pyramid, against a 
stone wall, its outspreading branches drooping 
protectingly, and hiding all sorts of secrets in its 
dark green depths. 

S6 



Dwellers in the 
Flower-Patch 

Behold, there was Martha, anxiously waiting 
on the doorstep, so to speak, for Augustus to 
return. She was as cautious in her movements 
as he was, but she couldn't help uttering a low 
" Chut ! chut ! " of pleasure when she saw his 
beak so crammed with good things. Both 
slipped in under the lowest branch. 

I bided my time. I didn't want to add one 
single extra anxiety to the little mother heart 
that was already so burdened with care. But 
when at length I saw both birds slink off in 
search of food, I parted the branches and looked 
in. For some time I could see nothing, it was 
so dark and mysterious under the heavily plumed 
boughs, but the little one had learnt to use its 
voice by now ; " Cheep " came vigorously from 
within ; and then I saw our baby comfortably 
ensconced on a drift of pine needles against 
the wall. 

I slipped away quietly, wondering and won- 
dering how in the world those little birds had 
managed to get that fat youngster up that hill 
and into the tree that was fully three minutes' 
walk, even for me, from the old nest ! 

The baby flourished apace, and before we 
returned to town, it was brought along to the 
pansy border, and told to stay there quite still 
for a moment, while mother got it something to 
eat. But it didn't do anything of the sort ; 
directly her back was turned, it hopped into the 

8? G 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

bird's bath, and splashed joyously till its ex- 
postulating parents returned, alarmed out of 
their senses lest it should be drowned ! 

After thinking it over, I fancy that for all- 
round serviceability you cannot do better than 
the blackbird. He starts singing in January, 
as a rule, and keeps at it till August, always a 
beautiful song, but not always the same song. 

It is a clear-blue message of hope, as it rings 
out on a cold winter's day. 

As the spring progresses, it becomes a 
cascade that overflows with bubbling sound and 
ends with a challenge : " Let any blackbird dare 
to say he can sing that cadenza as brilliantly as 
I can, and I'll know the reason why ! " 

Later on, when the nestlings keep up a 
constant demand for " more," he only manages 
to get in an occasional stanza ; and that, I am 
inclined to think, is when he has a difference of 
opinion with another of his kind ; though some- 
times he sings a rippling, pulsating song to the 
setting sun. 

But best of all I love him when the summer 
has run well on into July. He is getting tired 
then ; two families — possibly with four in the 
nest at a time — are something of a handful to 
cater for. He has become draggled and weary 
in appearance. His yellow-ringed eyes do not 
seem as sparkling as they were. But he still 

88 * 



Dwellers in the 
Flower-Patch 

tries to do his best, and towards sundown you 
may hear him singing; one of those in my 
garden seems to have a preference for an under- 
bough on a tall pine, where he stands almost 
hidden from sight, and whistles gently and 
softly — though not to me personally, as the robin 
does ; apparently he is talking to himself. 

Gone is the buoyancy of his early spring 
song; gone the self-assertiveness, the boastful- 
ness and dominating clamour of his early married 
life. Now, his song is much subdued, gentler, 
and strangely suggestive of a quiet, almost 
saddened reminiscence. 

Is it that his family have failed to come up 
to his expectations ? Is his song tinged with 
regret for the lost happiness of those first 
glad days of spring ? Or is it the reflection 
of the tranquillity that comes to those who 
bravely shouldered life's responsibility when 
the time came for leaving behind the things of 
youth ? 

Who knows what that subdued but exquisite 
little song means, as it falls, like a rain of soft, 
gentle sounds from the branches above ? 

I cannot tell, but it stirs something strangely 
responsive in my own heart ; I sense far-back 
things that I cannot take hold of, or put into 
tangible shape, and for the moment I feel 
mysteriously akin to the unseen singer in the 
blue-green depths of the old and rugged pine. 

89 g 2 



VII 

Only Small Talk 

I seem to have wandered a long way from 
Eileen, but it was really she who brought the 
birds to my mind. 

I got up early the morning after our arrival, 
in order to show her the way about, and because 
it is not one of my daily duties to be the first 
down in the morning, I noticed all the more how 
the opening of the doors and windows, to let in 
the day, is something much more than the mere 
undoing of locks and latches. There is nothing 
to compare with the inrush of sweet morning 
air that greets you on the threshold, as you take 
your first look-out on a dew-sparkling garden, 
probably all alive with the songs and chirps and 
twitters of the birds, and teeming with the 
scents of things seen and unseen, each pouring 
forth its gratitude in its own way for the ever- 
new miracle of the sun's return. 

This letting in of light and clean air, sun- 
shine, song and scent, after the inanimate 
darkness of the night, is so wonderfully symbolic 
that it seems a mistake that it has come to be 
regarded as one of the inferior domestic tasks, re- 
legated to the minor members of the household. 
And though I am not one of those exceptionally 

90 



Only Small 
Talk 

virtuous .people who habitually rise at six o'clock, 
waking every one else within earshot and taking 
vain pride in their performances, whenever I 
chance to be the first one to welcome the 
morning and let in the day, I feel there are 
decided compensations for the wrench of getting 
out of bed minus a cup of tea. 

I also realize how easy it is, in the flush of 
exhilaration produced by the early morning air, 
to make oneself a nuisance to all who are less 
energetic. For some unaccountable reason, 
when I am down extra early, I always want to 
bustle about, and do all sorts of rackety things 
that never occur to me on the days when I 
do not put in an appearance till breakfast is 
ready. 

I had opened the windows in the living-room, 
and had set Eileen to make the fire, and was 
seeing to things in the kitchen, when she 
followed me with an excited squawk : " Oh, 
ma'am, there's somebody has lost their canary ! 
It was on the window ledge just now, and it's 
flown into a tree. Have you got a bird-cage 
handy ? I expect I could catch it. There it is 
again " — pointing to a handsome yellow and 
black tit who was pecking eagerly at some 
bacon rind I had just hung up outside the 
window. 

I explained. 

" Wild, is he ? Wild ? ' she exclaimed ; 

9* 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

"and don't they charge you nothing for 
them ? " 

She finished the room with one eye per- 
petually on the windows. 

Having a healthy appetite, that had been 
touched up a little extra with the hill-top air, 
she was more than willing to help me get the 
meal ready. I made the usual preliminary 
inquiries as to her experience in regard to cook- 
ing, and was surprised to hear that she had 
actually won a silver medal at a Cookery Exhi- 
bition. 

Surely this was unexpected good fortune, and 
I asked myself if I really deserved such a heaven- 
sent boon as a silver-medalled cook ! I decided, 
however, that in view of all I had undergone in 
the past at the hands of those who were not so 
decorated, it was nothing more than my due 
that I should be so blessed in my declining 
years. My only regret was that war-time would 
allow so little scope for her genius ! 

Feeling very light-hearted, and wondering 
how she would get on with Abigail when cook 
gave one of her periodical notices and I placed 
Eileen on the permanent staff, I said : " Then I 
needn't bother about the breakfast ! We will 
have poached eggs on toast. I'll lay the cloth 
while you get them ready." 

But she looked at me doubtfully. " We 
didn't ever have poached eggs at the boarding- 

92 



Only Small 
Talk 

house," she began. " But I think I know how 
to do 'em. You just break them on the gridiron 
over the top of the fire, don't you ? " 

After all, it was I who poached the eggs, 
while Eileen explained that the medal had been 
awarded to the cookery class at the orphanage 
en bloc, for making a Swiss roll. . . . No, un- 
fortunately, she didn't know how to make Swiss 
roll either, as she had been down with scarlet 
fever that term. Still, it was her class that got 
the medal, so of course she had as much right to 
it as anyone else. 

I trust I bore the disappointment com- 
placently. I'm fairly hardened to such sudden 
drops in the kitchen thermometer. 

The great thing about Eileen was her willing- 
ness, and her anxiety to learn. 

When I was seeking to impart knowledge, 
however, she seemed to think it was for her also 
to contribute some general information. Hence 
our duologues often ran on these lines : — 

" When you make the tea or coffee, be sure 
that the water is quite boiling ; or else 

" Yes, ma'am. Do you know, one of the 
young gentlemen where I used to live, couldn't 
help being bald, no matter if he used a whole 
bottle of hair restorer every day. It ran in his 
fambly." 

" Really ! Well, now we'll fry some bacon. 
You put a little of the bacon fat from this 

93 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

jar into the pan first of all to get hot. Like 
this." 

" Yes, ma'am. Isn't it strange, grandmother 
won't never have red roses in her bonnet. Can't 
bear red." 

She also excelled in asking questions ; from 
morn till eve life seemed one long series of conun- 
drums which I was expected to answer. I never 
realized before how many queries country life 
presents ; hitherto it had seemed to me such a 
simple, straightforward state of existence. 

An old man had been secured to do an 
occasional odd day's work (at highest London 
prices). He described some misfortune that, 
last autumn, had befallen " Hussy," the cow who 
comes for change of air into my orchard at 
intervals — an apple she had eaten (one of mine, 
of course) being blamed for the fact that her 
milk turned off, " like vinegar 'twas." 

Eileen — in common with every other young 
human under twenty years of age — thrilled at 
the word apple, and inquired if " Hussy " had 
stolen it off a tree ? 

" Stolen it off a tree ! " scoffed the man ; 
" and why should she bother to creek her neck 
up'ards when they was lying by the thousand 
as thick on the ground in that thur orchard as — 
as — well, as apples ! " 

Eileen looked incredulous. 

"Yes, by the thousand they was, and not 

94 



Only Small 
Talk 

wuth picking up, no one wanted 'em ; no men 
to make cider ; no sugar to jam 'em ; child'un 
all got colic a'ready as bad as bad could be, 
couldn't swaller no more ; too damp to keep. 
Ay, and we that short o' cider as we be ! " And 
the aged one — who had been coining money 
hand over fist, with letter carrying, and the sale 
of eggs and poultry, and a couple of pigs, and the 
hay in his paddock, to say nothing of gilt-edged 
easy little jobs waiting for him all about the 
place at any price per hour he cared to charge, 
and old age pensions paid regularly to himself 
and wife — paused to shake his head and sigh 
over the misfortunes of the times. 

Eileen was likewise moved. To think of it 
— unwanted apples ! And no one to eat them ! 
She reverted to the phenomenon several times 
that day, with such queries as these : — If eatmg 
one apple turns the cow's milk to vinegar, would 
eating fifty turn it to cider ? If so, wouldn't it 
be cheaper to make the cow grow cider, as the 
old man said cider had riz to 7d. sl quart, and 
milk was only 6cL You would then make a 
penny a quart profit that you could put into 
the Savings Bank to help the War. 

After watching some vegecultural operations 
she inquired : " Why is it, when he puts potatoes 
in the ground and beans in the ground all the 
same way, the beans come out at the top of the 
plant and the potatoes come out at the bottom ? " 

9$ 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

Another time it was : " What do they use 
the sting of the nettle for ? " And when she 
had enlarged her garden vocabulary, she inquired : 
" Is a spider an annual or a perennial ? " 

" I can't find a tap out there to turn off the 
water," and she indicated the spring outside the 
gate, tumbling out of a little wooden trough 
wedged in among the rocks, into a pool below. 
" I suppose they stop it at the main. What 
time do they turn it off? . . . Never? It runs 
like that always ! Then how long is it before 
the whole lot runs away and it's all dried up ? 
And don't they ever come down on you for 
wasting the water ? " 

Yet more accomplished people than Eileen 
have often surprised one by their ignorance. 
An experienced and supposed-to-be-highly- 
qualified cook came to me one day with the sad 
news that we couldn't have any stuffing with the 
duck for dinner that day as there wasn't a single 
bottle of herbs in the house. I reminded her 
that there was an almost unlimited amount of 
everything in the garden, including a sage 
bush growing on a wall that now measures 
15 feet by 6 feet. " In the garden ? " she 
repeated in surprise. " But I didn't know it 
was good unless it was bottled ! You don't 
mean that country people use those things 
raw ? " 

96 



Only Small 
Talk 

I felt such an apologetic cannibal as I ex- 
plained ! 

She it was who split up the chopping board 
to light the fire, the first morning after her 
arrival, because she couldn't find a bundle of 
firewood anywhere. On being referred to the 
stack of dry kindling wood in the coal shed — she 
had never heard of lighting fires with trees 
before ; never thought, indeed, to live with a 
family that expected you to do such things ! 

On one occasion, when I was in one of the 
largest and poorest of the London Elementary 
Schools, where the children looked as pitifully 
sordid and poverty-stricken as I have ever seen 
them, I asked a few questions of one small girl 
in the front row of a class. Her outside dress 
consisted of an old dilapidated waistcoat worn 
over a dingy flannelette nightgown, while a 
ragged piece of serge fastened around the waist 
with a safety-pin did duty for a skirt. But she 
was only one among a classful of rags and 
tatters. 

" What is your name ? " I asked, by way of 
starting conversation. 

" Victorine," the forlorn-looking little thing 
replied. 

" And what is your lesson about ? " I then 
inquired. 

" Therdelfykorrickul," she informed me, 

97 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

Seeing the bewildered look on my face, the 
head mistress, who was showing me round, said, 
" Enunciate your words more carefully, Vic- 
torine, and speak slowly." 

Victorine understood what " speak slowly " 
meant, and so she said very deliberately, " The 
— Delphic — Horricul. " 

" So you are learning about the Delphic 
Oracle. And what are you going to do when 
you grow up ? " was my next query. 

"I'm going to work in the laundry like 
muvver ! " 

We went into another classroom ; here more 
ragged unwashed clothes greeted me on every 
hand. I had no need to ask the subject of the 
lesson, for the girls were facing a blackboard 
on which was written " The Characteristics of 
Shelley's Poetry." 

After I had seen more tatters in a third 
room, where a lesson was being given on " In- 
finitive Verbs," I said to the head mistress, " If 
I had this school, do you know what I should 
do ? I should take a class at a time, and give 
out needles and cotton, and tell them to do the 
best they could to sew up the rags in their 
dresses and their pinafores. I would not mind 
if they did not put on patches even to a thread 
in the regulation way, so long as they made 
some attempt to run together those rents and 
slits and yawning gaps. I would let the other 

93 



Only Small 
Talk 

lessons go till this was done. And I would not 
let a girl take her place in a class in the morning 
till she had mended as well as she could any 
rents she had worn to school." 

The head mistress shook her head. " That 
would not be practical ; you see, it isn't in the 
Syllabus." 

I don't pretend to understand the inwardness 
of syllabuses, but I couldn't help wondering it 
there wasn't an opening here for a new one. 
While so much unpractical stuff is taught to the 
poorer classes in elementary schools, is it any 
wonder that the children know so little of the 
things appertaining to daily life ? 

Eileen didn't exactly suffer from rags. She 
was as neat and patched and wholesome as her 
clean, sensible grandmother could make her ; 
but she was forlorn-looking to the last degree. 
One of the first things I tried to do was to get 
her to take a little pride in her personal appear- 
ance. And it was wonderful how she responded. 
With her hair released from the uncompromising, 
tight screw that had been kept in place by three 
big iron-looking hair-pins, and done higher up, 
and more loosely over the forehead, and a pretty 
collar and blue bow for her Sunday blouse, she 
looked a different being. 

" Poor little thing, she has never had a soul 
take any interest in how she looks," Ursula re- 
marked to me. " And even though we're not 

99 



Between the Larch- \ 
woods and the Weir 

allowed to cast our bread upon the waters, 
nowadays, they haven't said anything officially 
about ribbons." And so we searched our drawers 
for suitable finery that might bring a little colour 
into Eileen's hitherto drab outlook. Virginia 
followed suit, remarking that she liked to scatter 
little seeds of kindness by the wayside, since you 
never know what may result. 

True ! She didn't ! 

Meanwhile, Eileen gloated over the odds and 
ends, fixing weird and crazy-looking bows to her 
black sailor hat, draping her shoulders with bits 
of lace to see if they would make a collar, and 
standing in front of the kitchen glass trying the 
effect of pinks and purples under her chin. 

For a time, the questions ceased. 



ioo 



VIII 

A Cold Snap 

For a couple of days the sun was radiant, and 
the air actually warm. We agreed with each 
other that Italy and the South of France weren't 
in it. 

We started gardening with all the zest of 
backwoods-women, who know that the only 
vegetables they can hope for are those they 
themselves grow. Unlike the majority of Lon- 
doners, the War had not added much to our 
knowledge in this direction. I had not owned 
a house in the country many months before 1 
learnt the value of first-hand home production. 
Hence, when the allotment fever set in, we 
were quite able to keep pace with the rest of the 
world despite our failing intellects. The only 
thing that differentiated us from the remainder 
of our fellow-citizens in the Metropolis, was the 
fact that we appeared to be the only ones who 
did not feel themselves competent to bestow 
unlimited information and advice, in season and 
out of season, to all and sundry, on every 
imaginable and unimaginable point connected 
with the raising of food crops. 

One of the many reasons for the charm that 
envelops our life at the hillside cottage lies in 

IOI 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

the fact that it brings us much closer to the 
fundamental principle of keeping alive than is 
ever possible in town with its over-civilization. 
Of course, it isn't desirable that our mental and 
spiritual interests should centre in the question 
of what we shall eat and what we shall drink, 
and wherewithal shall we keep warm and com- 
fortable, but I think a woman suffers a distinct 
loss when she eliminates these matters entirely 
from her horizon. 

I know, from personal experience, that there 
comes a period in our lives when we women feel 
that there are much higher enterprises beckon- 
ing us, that we (individually, not collectively) 
are called to do some work in the world that is 
far greater than seeing to meals, and keeping 
the household machinery moving unobtrusively 
and with regularity ; but it is fortunate that 
there eventually returns to us (if we are properly 
balanced) a realization that some of our very 
best work can be put into the making of a 
home, and that far from it being narrow and 
sordid and selfish to devote a large part of our- 
selves to household administration, it is in 
reality one of the widest spheres that a woman 
can choose, and one that will give her the 
biggest scope for bringing happiness and 
strength and health to others — and, after all, 
isn't that the avowed aim of the most advanced 
of modern feminists ? 

102 



A Cold 
Snap 

Still, I admit that our cramped surroundings 
and jaded, strained existence in cities do not 
always make a round of domestic duties seem 
alluring to the woman who has to cram her 
belongings and her aspirations into a small 
modern flat, or who has to do her cooking in 
one of the unhealthy, sunless basements that 
prevail in the older houses in towns. A woman 
needs fresh air, sunshine and a garden if the best 
is to be brought out of her. Oh, yes, I know 
some few women have done great things with- 
out one or another of these items — but probably 
they would have done still more if they had had 
the opportunity to come to their full develop- 
ment under more favourable circumstances. 

I'm not surprised that women, whose exis- 
tence is limited by the narrow environment of 
towns, so continually beat the air with a longing 
to do something more than seems possible in 
the flat or dull suburban villa. Civilization has 
taken out of their hands so many of the useful 
occupations that formerly kept women busy — 
and worthily busy too ; and it is not to be won- 
dered at that they cry out for something to do, 
and invent Causes on which to expend their zeal 
and energy. The preparation of food, the 
laundry work, and indeed most household duties 
are now done for us in cities on the " penny-in- 
the-slot" principle (only we have to put a 
shilling in the slot, as a rule, for the pennyworth 

103 H 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

of result that we receive) ; and it is small 
wonder that so few of us can work up any 
interest in the process. 

But how are matters to be altered ? you ask 
me. I don't know ! Pray don't think I'm 
proposing to find solutions for grave problems 
in these stories ! I'm only giving you a record 
of facts, just simple everyday little happenings 
" of no value to anyone save the owner." And 
we'll leave it at that, if you don't mind, and 
return to the garden. 

Before the War labour was not so scarce, 
and there was no need for us to plant the vege- 
tables ourselves, unless we desired to do so. 
Now, however, one's own personal work was a 
valuable asset, and we put our backs into it — at 
least Ursula and I did ; Virginia was engaged 
most of the time in describing the sort of tools 
she would make, if she were in that line of 
business, to obviate the grave spinal trouble she 
was certain she was developing. 

I don't mean to imply that Virginia isn't a 
good gardener; she can be an excellent one 
when she likes, for she knows what gardening 
really stands for in the way of hard work. 
Whereas some of my would-be assistant gar- 
deners seem to think the chief requisites are a 
comfortable hammock and a book ; or, at most, 
a "picture" muslin frock and a pretty basket 

104 



A Cold 
Snap 

and a pair of baby scissors. Such girls remind 
me of many who write and inquire if I have a 
vacancy for a sub-editor in my office, the chief 
qualification stated in their letters being that 
they "do so love to browse among books." 

Virginia isn't like that ; she puts on a 
business-like garb, and knows — and annexes — a 
good tool when she sees it. But it is her bright 
ideas that are the hindrance to progress. She 
wasted ten minutes that morning explaining to 
me that she was sure, if I would only have 
turnips planted in the mint bed, it would be 
another war economy, as the mint flavour might 
permeate the turnips, and thus save double 
expense with lamb. 

And then another ten minutes went in 
enlarging on the grasping nature of the makers 
of gardening gloves in not supplying four pairs 
of extra thumbs with each pair, since any intel- 
ligent gardener could wear out eight thumbs 
with one pair in the simplest day's gardening. 
She offered to let me use the idea free of charge 
in my magazine, if I would undertake to keep 
her supplied with gardening gloves for the rest 
of her natural life ; but she stipulated that they 
must be proper leather ones, not the four-and- 
sixpenny war variety she was then wearing, 
composed of unbleached calico, with merely a 
chamois postage-stamp stuck on the front ot 
each finger and thumb. 

105 h 2 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

In the intervals of conversation she aided us 
with our digging, yet, in spite of the National 
Call to spend as much on seed potatoes as 
would keep the family in vegetables for a couple 
of years, we continually found ourselves drifting 
away from the ground we were trenching, for 
the violets were already out, also some early 
primroses, and little white stars were showing 
on the wild strawberry trails in sheltered corners 
under walls that faced south. 

And the garden is full of sheltered nooks, 
despite its being so high up. As the ground 
slopes towards the south, every wall that props 
up the garden — and there are so many, like 
giant steps down the steep hillside — gives pro- 
tection from the cold winds to the little growing - 
things that nestle in every crevice and on the 
ground below. Everywhere the pennywort was 
sending out clear green disks from the mysterious 
depths of crannies in the wall. Crocuses were 
showing orange buds in the garden beds. One 
precocious pansy held up a white flower, streaked 
and splashed with purple. 

"Spring has really come," we all chorused. 
And oh, how good it seemed to be done with 
the winter ; such a winter too ! Surely the 
longest and most awful winter humanity has 
ever known ! 

With spring and summer immediately before 
us, as it seemed, we decided to leave the 

io6 



A Cold 
Snap 

trenching just for that day, and explore the 
lanes and woods. The lichens and mosses were 
at the height of their beauty — a beauty that 
would fade once the sun got any power. The 
wall-stones were splashed with browns and 
greys, rust-colour and orange, black and olive, 
and one particular lichen that is our especial joy 
tints the stone a milky pea-green shade that is 
unlike any other colour I can recall. 

Last year's bramble leaves were purple and 
scarlet and crimson and yellow. Where the 
small ivy creeping up the walls had been touched 
by the frost, it had turned a vivid yellow mottled 
with warm brown and crimson. And it is sur- 
prising, once you take note of it, how much 
crimson is used by Nature where you would 
expect to find only green ; and not merely a 
dull red, it is a brilliant, vivid carmine that is 
dropped about in quiet, unsuspected places, 
lighting up dark patches, emphasizing sombre 
details that one might otherwise overlook. 

We were turning over a handful of brown 
leaves under an oak tree in the wood ; there we 
found the streak of crimson showing inside an 
acorn that had just burst to let out a young 
shoot that was seeking about for roothold below 
and light up above. Not only one, but hundreds 
of similar brilliant touches were scattered about 
where the fertile acorns lay among the moss 
and last year's fern. 

107 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

In one secluded spot, where the cold had not 
been severe enough to wither last year's foliage 
on the undergrowth, long sprays of ground ivy, 
climbing over a fallen branch, had turned to 
deep wine colour, stems and all, and lay, as 
Eileen said, " beautiful enough for one of them 
lovely wreaths of leaves they put round best 
hats." Certainly it looked more artificial than 
natural, if one didn't happen to know that 
ground ivy often takes on this tint in its 
declining days. 

Thanks to Tennyson, we all know that 
rosy plumelets tuft the larch ; but it doesn't 
matter how many times you see them, they are 
always worth looking at — and marvelling at — 
again. 

And there seems no limit to the crimson 
splashes. Is there anything anywhere that can 
compare with the Herb Robert, its leaves far 
more radiant than its blossoms ; or the leaves of 
the evening primrose when they start to fade 
at the bottom of the stem ; or the waning 
foliage of the sorrel ? 

To make a list of the crimson touches (as 
distinct from the reddish-brown) that one finds 
on stems and foliage any day in the country, 
would be a revelation to most of us. 

Though the sun had been so bright when we 
started, it doesn't do to trust too much in an 

1 08 



A Cold 
Snap 

English spring, and we presently noticed a very 
decided change ; the temperature dropped with 
great rapidity, as clouds came up and hid the 
sun, and the hills that towered about us sud- 
denly loomed gloomy and forbidding. The 
wind veered round from south-west to north-east ; 
and by evening it was piercingly, bitterly cold. 

Taking a last look round with the lantern 
before we locked up for the night, not a sound 
could be heard ; everything was absolutely still, 
with that unearthly silence of a land suddenly 
gripped by overpowering cold. I glanced at 
the thermometer hanging on the outside wall ; 
it already registered three degrees below freezing ; 
it would probably be ten before morning. 

We bolted the door and shut out the cold, 
hoping no one was wandering lost on the hills 
that night (not that anyone ever is, but it is 
pleasant to have kind charitable thoughts like 
that, on a bleak night, as you put yet another 
log on the fire). 

Next morning, as it was colder and more 
perishing than ever, I decided to cope with 
several days' arrears of office work, piling itself 
up in all directions. Virginia said it was just as 
well the weather necessitated our remaining 
indoors, as she could now get on with her work. 
Of course we asked : What work ? 

She informed us that she was engaged upon 

109 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

an anthology, " Shakespeare and the Great 
War." She felt that " Shakespeare and Every- 
thing Else " had been done pretty thoroughly — 
by less competent people than herself, it is true ; 
but, all the same, the poet had been dealt with 
exhaustively from every point of view but that 
of the War. Also, the War had been dealt with, 
in extenso, from every point of view but Shake- 
speare's. Hence, her present literary effort. 

And would I kindly give her any quotations 
I could think of, that had any bearing on this 
world-crisis. 

All my brain was equal to was — 

" Tell me, where is fancy bred ? " 

which undoubtedly indicated that the War Loaf 
was known to pall on the public taste even in 
Shakespeare's time. 

She said she had expected me to say that, it 
was so obvious. Nevertheless, I noticed she 
hurriedly jotted it down. 

We asked her to read her MS. so far as she 
had gone ; it seemed a pity for us to overlap. 

" I've made a fair start," she explained, " but 
the trouble is they all turn out so awkwardly. 
For instance, the first quotation I have down is— 

1 She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth 
meat to her household ' 

—anyone can see Daylight Saving there " 

no 



A Cold 
Snap 

Naturally, I opened my mouth to speak, but 
she cut me short, testily : 

" Of course I know as well as you that it 
isn't Shakespeare — at least I wasn't reared a 
heathen ! — but that's just the tiresome part 
of it. Every quotation I think of isn't Shake- 
speare at all. Here's another that would do 
beautifully (and take up a nice bit of space 
on the page too), - 

1 The upper air burst into life ! 

And a hundred fire-flags' sheen, 
To and fro they were hurried about! 
And to and fro, and in and out, 
The wan stars danced between.' 

" Even a child could tell you they were the 
searchlights trying to spot a Zepp. — only it isn't 
Shakespeare ! It's very worrying. Yet I know 
if only I could get the book done, there would 
be a fortune in it. W. S. always sells, and he's 
so respectable too ! " 

I said I was sorry my office duties had prior 
claim on my time, and I urged Ursula to do her 
sisterly part. But she said she couldn't be 
bothered just then ; her mind was more than 
fully occupied in trying to lay the blame for 
everything on the right person. 

So I took Virginia's MS. and read it down. 

" How full of briars is this working-day world." 

This proves that barbed wire entanglements were 
known in the seventeenth century. 

Ill 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

" How far that little candle throws his beams ! " 

This indicates clearly that Shakespeare was fined 
for failing to comply with the Lighting Eestrictions. 

That he was compelled to pay War Profits out of 
the " royalties " on his plays is evidenced by these 
poignant words in Macbeth : — 

" Nought's had, all's spent," 

and doubtless there was a subtle reference to War 
taxation in 

" Age cannot wither nor custom stale her infinite 
variety." 

The unfailing hold of Shakespeare on humanity is 

the fact that he touched upon all phases of life. 

(This sentence was Virginia's own literary contribu- 

bution to the " Anthology.") For example (she went 

on), even a sugar shortage was known in his day. 

To what else could he have been referring when he 

wrote 

" Sweet are the uses of adversity," 

and can anyone doubt that 

" Double, double, toil and trouble, 
Fire burn and cauldron bubble," 

points to meatless days ? 

Here we were interrupted by a knock at the 
door. It was Miss Primkins, an elderly lady 
who lives by herself (or at least with Rehoboam, 
her cat) in a pretty little cottage further down 
the hill. Miss Primkins has been hard hit by 
the War, but no matter how she has to skimp 
and save in other ways, she never relaxes her 
work for the wounded. 

112 



A Cold 
Snap 

And it was about her contribution to Queen 
Mary's Needlework Guild that she came up to 
consult me. Not that we started there straight 
away — of course not. We talked about the 
shortage of sugar, and the high cost of boots, 
and the scarcity of chicken food, and the price 
of meat, and the difficulty of knowing how to 
feed Rehoboam adequately and yet in strict 
accordance with official regulations, and the 
colour of the bread, and " what are we coming 
to," and other topical matters like that. Then, 
when I had pressed Miss Primkins several times 
to stay to our midday meal, and she had as many 
times assured me that she must not stay another 
minute, grateful though she was for my kind 
invitation, as she had put on the potatoes to boil 
before she came out, she produced (in an under- 
tone) a paper parcel from her bag, and with much 
hesitation explained that she wanted advice on a 
private matter. 

I was all attention. 

Undoing the paper, she displayed what 
looked like a round bolster case made of pink 
and blue striped flannelette. As she held it up 
for inspection, it " flared " at the top (to use a 
dressmaker's term) with merely a small round 
opening at the bottom. 

I glanced it over as intelligently as I knew 
how, and then inquired what it was. 

« It's a pyjama for a soldier," she murmured 

1*3 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

modestly, in a very low voice. " I've cut it 
exactly by the paper pattern, yet Miss Judson, 
who saw it yesterday, says she doesn't believe 
it's right. We've neither of us ever made one 
before; so I thought I would run up to you 
with it ; you would be sure to know " 

" Er — h'm — ah — yes," I said, as light dawned. 
" It's all right so far as it goes ; but where's the 
other leg ? " 

" The other leg ? " she echoed, " there was 
only one in the pattern." 

" Of course ; but you should have cut it out 
in double material; the garment requires two 
legs, you know." 

" Does it ! " she exclaimed in genuine surprise. 
" Why, I thought it must be intended for a 
soldier who had had his other leg amputated ! " 

Before Virginia put away her " Anthology," 
preparatory to having lunch, she added another 
quotation to her list — 

" For never anything can be amiss 
When simpleness and duty tender it," 

and against this she scribbled, "one-legged 
pyjamas " — doubtless for elucidation and ampli- 
fication at a later date. I hope I haven't fore- 
stalled her. 



114 



IX 

Snowdrifts 

It was later in the day, and the zest for Shake- 
speare had waned. Virginia had moved from 
beside the fire and was sitting nearer the window, 
in order to get what light there was from the 
sun just disappearing behind the opposite hills. 
She was very busy with some crochet edging she 
had lately started. It was the first time within 
the memory of living woman that Virginia had 
been seen with a crochet-hook in her hand — 
fancy-work had never been her strong point — 
hence the inordinate pride with which she patted 
out the short fragment on any available surface 
at frequent intervals, surveying it from different 
points of view with her head cricked at various 
angles, and calling upon all and sundry to admire. 
After moving nearer the window she again 
patted out the seven small scallops on her knee, 
as usual, and then became meditative. No one 
paid much attention to her, however. I was 
sitting on the settle, with a heaped-up table 
before me, absorbed in MSS., which I was 
reading, and then sorting into various piles — for 
printer, for reserve, for return — and arranging 
these on the seat beside me ; important work, 
which accounted for my preoccupation. 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

Ursula was busily engaged in the laudable 
endeavour to construct a pair of child's knickers 
out of two pairs of stocking legs. Someone had 
told her this could be done. It had appealed to 
her as a serviceable way to use up done-with 
stockings (and she assured me the problem of 
what to do with these " done-withs " had been a 
long-standing mental burden), while at the same 
time one might be conferring a benefit upon the 
poor. The fact that the modern " poor " would 
have scorned anything so economical did not 
worry her. 

At last Virginia broke the silence. " It's 
really quite remarkable I I don't know that I've 
met with a more extraordinary crochet pattern 
than this," she said thoughtfully. 

" Where did you get it from ? " I asked rather 
absently, as I went on with my work. 

" From one of the magazines you are 
supposed to edit," she said blandly. 

" What is there extraordinary about it ? " I 
inquired, now thoroughly roused up to give the 
matter all my attention, while Ursula laid down 
the dislocated stocking leg she had been wrestling 
with. 

" Well, it's like this. There is the pattern, 
you see," pointing to a picture I had seen before, 
"and there are the directions. When you've 
worked them through once, that makes one 
scallop. Do you see ? " 

116 



Snow- 
drifts 

We said we saw it quite plainly. 

" Then, you notice it says at the very end, 
' go back and repeat from the first row ' ? Now 
this is the extraordinary part of the affair ; every 
time I go back and repeat from the first row it 
makes an entirely different scallop. The last 
time but one, you see, the scallop came on the 
opposite side of the sewing-on edge ; I thought 
that was interesting enough ! But now I find 
this last scallop has turned a corner. Funny, 
isn't it ? " 

For the first time we gave Virginia's bit of 
edging serious attention. What she had done 
with those directions it was impossible to say, 
but the result was certainly peculiar. 

" That will be a valuable piece of lace by the 
time it's finished," I said. " What are you going 
to do with it ? " 

" I'm making it as a Christmas present for 
you," she replied sweetly. " I think it may 
help to promote conversation if you display it at 
your social functions. I know you're going to 
say how unselfish it is of me. I think, myself, I 
mellow as I age." 

" Not at all," I replied politely, and suggested 
that we should go for a walk, lest such concen- 
trated thinking should be too much for her. 

" If you'd been a properly-minded hostess 
you would have proposed that long ago. I've 
been waiting anxiously for it, only there is 

117 



Between the Larch* 
woods and the Weir 

Ursula absorbed in that outfit that no masculine 
infant anywhere would recognise " 

" Oh, I've given up the knicker idea long 
ago," interrupted Ursula. "I've turned them 
into chest-protectors for the old people in the 
infirmary. And now, as a war economy, I'm 
going to enlarge your vests (I neither ask for, 
nor expect, gratitude !). The laundry having 
shrunk them to waistbands, I shall add an 
upper and a lower storey." 

" — and you sit hour after hour reading MSS. 
What are they all about ? What's that one in 
your hand, for instance ? " 

" This one," holding up some sheets ol 
violently- written paper that almost burst through 
the envelope, "is an anonymous letter from 
some irate lady who objects to something or 
someone appearing in our pages. I haven't time 
to read it, but if you care to wade through it " 

" Anonymous letters are so futile." 

" Anything but," I told her. " It is always 
a pleasant thing, at the end of the day, to feel 
that you have, even in a slight way, contributed 
to anyone's happiness. And I'm sure the lady 
who dug her pen into that anonymous letter was 
very happy when she posted it. Glad am I, 
therefore, to be the unworthy instrument per- 
mitted to promote her joy ! " 

Virginia merely snorted. " What's the next 

MS. about ? " 

118 



Snow- 
drifts 

" This is a very long poem on the War, and 
the writer explains that she has made all the 
lines run straight on in order to save paper, but 
doubtless I can find out where it rhymes. It 
begins ' Hail, proud mother of nations who dwell 
in these sea-girt islands for centuries past and 
centuries yet to be ' " 

Virginia said she'd skip the rest, please, and 
wasn't there a little light fiction anywhere in 
the chaos before me ? 

" This is a story of a beautiful Russian 
princess who was doomed to live in a lonely 
castle, with no one but her aged and decrepit 
nurse, in the very centre of a pathless Siberian 
forest, hundreds of miles from everybody, until 
the spell should be broken " 

" What spell ? " inquired Ursula. 

"(I don't know — the writer doesn't say) — 
until the spell should be broken, when she would 
be free. She was the most exquisite vision that 
ever burst upon human sight. Not only were her 
features perfect, and her hair a rippling cascade 
of gold, but her dress was grace and beauty 
combined." 

" Then it wasn't one of this season's models 1 " 
ejaculated Ursula, "hence it must have been 
out-of-date. All the same, I'd like to know who 
was her dressmaker. Did they think to mention 
the name ? " 

(" No, that is not stated.) — She used to spend 

119 1 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

her days listening to the wolves who congregated 
all around the castle howling and gnashing their 
horrid fangs, till one day an honest, sturdy 
forester approached, and with one fell swoop 
slew dozens of them. Whereupon the Princess 
Elizabeth — for such was her name — opened the 
door and cried, ' W elcome, deliverer ! ' and in 
less time than it takes me to tell you, that aged 
and decrepit nurse had prepared, all unaided, a 
sumptuous wedding banquet, while gorgeously 
apparelled guests arrived in battalions from no- 
where. Then, just as they were about to be 
married, the honest, sturdy forester, no longer 
able to conceal his identity, confessed that he 
was indeed the Prince." 

" What Prince ? ' inquired the interrupter 
again. 

" I don't know, and the writer doesn't say, 
and I wish you would remember, Ursula, that in 
the larger proportion of MSS. sent to editors it 
is customary for the writers to omit the essential 
details ! " 

" Then I'd just as soon go for a walk as hear 
any more," she said with decision. 

Whereupon we got into big coats and 
thick gloves and tied on our hats with motor 
scarfs, I don't mean the filmy wisps one wears 
when motoring in the park, but those large, 
solid, thick, brown, woollen scarves that look as 
though they had been made from a horse-blanket 

120 



Snow- 
drifts 

— the sort that the West End window dresser in 
desperation labels " dainty ! " But the air was 
bitingly cold, and we were so high up among the 
hills, that no wraps would have been too warm 
that day. Then we started off, after I had said 
a final word to Eileen about the necessity for 
keeping the kettle boiling, as we shouldn't be 
gone long. She had assured me many times 
already that she wasn't the least bit nervous 
about being left alone — rather liked it, in fact. 
She was blissfully engaged at the moment in 
trying to construct a " dainty evening camisole " 
(as per some penny weekly she had bought 
coming down) out of the satin ribbon and lace 
from Virginia's last year's hat. 

The small white dog with the brown ears 
accompanied us to the gate, but decided that, 
with the thermometer just where it was at that 
moment, home-keeping hearts were happiest ; so 
he promptly returned to the hearthrug. 

The sun had disappeared, but there was still 
light on the hill-tops, though the valley below 
was fast settling down to darkness. Virginia 
suggested the lantern, but I thought we should 
not need it, more especially as a moon was due 
immediately. So we set off at a swinging pace. 

Already, owing to the severity of the frost, 
the roads rang like iron to our tread. Every 
stalk and twig was glistening with rime and 
feathered with hoar-frost. No sign of life did 

121 i 2 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

we see in all that walk. Where were the birds, 
and squirrels, and rabbits, and pheasants, and all 
the hundreds of timid wild things we were 
accustomed to meet on our summer rambles ? 
We hoped they were safely tucked away in 
barns or burrows, or sleeping in warm hayricks, 
for nothing else above ground would give them 
any shelter. I thought of the row of twittering 
swallows that always perch themselves along the 
ridge of the cottage roof on hot summer after- 
noons, and felt glad they had gone off to a 
warmer climate. 

But for ourselves, we would not have ex- 
changed the weather that moment for any other, 
no matter how balmy. There is something 
remarkably exhilarating in the clear cold air of 
such a day on the hilltops, and as we mounted 
up and up our spirits rose with us — even though 
the roads were rough and terribly hard on war- 
time leather. 

I once remarked to a local resident that I 
found our stony hillside roads a bit trying, to 
say nothing of the side paths. 

" Well now, I do be s'prised to hear 'ee a-say 
that," he replied. " For the on'y time I were 
up to Lunnon — I went for a day scursion — 
d'you know my legs did that hake when I got 
back, I were a week getting over it. It were all 
along o' they flat stones what they do have up 
there ; why, if you believe me, I was a-near 

122 



Snow- 
drifts 

toppling over every other minute. There weren't 
ne'er a blessed thing to catch holt onter with 
your toes ! I felt as though the pavemint was 
a-coming up to knock my head. Now on these 
here roads o' ourn you can't slip far, because 
there's always summat of a rock or big stone to 
trip up agin." 

For myself, however, I sometimes think I 
would prefer the said rocks and stones if they 
were boiled a bit, and then mangled. 

At last we reached the crest of the hill, and 
paused to get our breath. The silence was awe- 
inspiring. At all other times there is a persistent 
hum of insects, or cheep of birds, or the rustling 
of leaves and swaying grasses — movement and 
sound somewhere, night as well as day. But 
when the earth has been swept by the magic of 
frost, then there is silence indeed. From where 
we stood, we might have been alone on the 
very edge of the world. No house was visible, 
and although we knew that the little village 
lay in the valley below us, we could see nothing 
of it. 

All was grey, merging into indigo in the 
depths of the coombes. Grey were the trees on 
the farther hills, grey unrelieved by the lights 
and shadows that gaily chase each other over the 
steeps in sunny weather, as the white clouds sail 
across the sky above them. 

123 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

Near at hand the trees took on more indi- 
viduality. The straight columns of the larches 
were mysterious-looking and awe-inspiring, 
suggesting regiments of soldiers suddenly called 
to a halt. Pale grey beeches, that in damp 
weather show a vivid emerald green down the 
north side of their huge trunks, where moss 
flourishes undisturbed, were now stretching out 
strong bare arms over the carpet of many 
years' leaves lying thickly beneath them. Silver 
birch stems gleamed in contrast to the glossy 
dark green of innumerable aged yews that dotted 
the woods — ancient inhabitants, indeed, stand- 
ing hoary and heroic like some dark-visaged 
guardians of the forest, among a host of new- 
comers of a far younger generation. 

But while we were standing there, a sound 
suddenly broke the stillness, a sound I have 
heard hundreds of times on those hills, yet never 
without an eerie feeling. It begins far away, a 
low undertone murmur ; gradually it comes 
nearer and nearer, getting louder and louder, till it 
becomes almost a roar, and then — diminuendo — 
it passes on and is finally lost in the far 
distance. 

It is only the wind as it suddenly rushes 
through the river gorge ; but as it tears at the 
forests on the hillsides, and lashes the branches 
together, it produces a strangely uncanny sound, 

124 



Snow- 
drifts 

more especially when the trees are bare and 
extremely vibrant. 

Hearing this, one can understand the origin 
of the old-time legends about headless horsemen 
galloping past on windy nights, and similar hair- 
raising stories. As a child, when I often visited 
at another house in this region (for four genera- 
tions of us have climbed these hills and explored 
the valleys), I heard these same " headless horse- 
men " gallop along the slopes on many stormy 
nights ; and despite my years and my common 
sense, I still feel the same creepy shiver in the 
back of my neck when they have a particularly 
mad stampede past my cottage door, for then 
they always pause to give the weirdest of howls 
through the keyholes ! 

" How dark it is getting ! " exclaimed Ursula. 
" Where is your moon ? And just hear the 
wind coming up the valley ! " 

It had not reached us as yet, but the words 
had scarcely left her lips before it came — swish 
— full upon us. We had to grip each other and 
plant our walking-sticks firmly on the ground 
to keep our feet. And then we knew what 
the sudden change meant, for next moment 
down came the snow — snow such as the town- 
dweller knows nothing about, for in cities 
there are buildings to break the force of the 
elements ; but on these heights there is nothing 
to impede the fury of the storm as it gallops 

125 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

over the upper regions, crashing and smashing 
as it goes. 

The snow dashed in our eyes ; it got inside 
our coat-collars ; it clogged up our hair ; it 
swirled and " druv " (as they say locally) till it 
made our heads dizzy, and our eyes smarted with 
trying to see through the whirling mass. 

Owing to our exposed position we felt the 
full force of the storm, and it was a difficult 
matter to make headway in the blinding flakes 
and stinging wind. 

" There is a short cut through the wood, 
further along the road ; let us get home as soon 
as we can," I said, leading the way, and we 
staggered on against the blizzard, till we came 
to the wood, and plunged from the road into its 
recesses. But I soon found it is one thing to 
know the way through a dense mass of trees in 
bright sunshine with a path clearly defined, and 
quite another thing to find one's way in the 
twilight, with a gale blowing in one's teeth and 
every landmark obliterated by the rapidly falling 
snow. 

We stumbled along for some time, over the 
rough stones and great boulders, lovely enough 
in summer with their coverings of ivy, moss, and 
fern, but very painful and cold for the shins 
when you tumble over them in the snow. 
Before long it was quite evident to me that we 
were merely wandering at large among the trees, 

126 



Snow- 
drifts 

and scrambling among the undergrowth of stalks 
and bracken, our hats catching in the hanging 
branches, our skirts being clutched at by the all- 
pervading bramble — path there was none. I 
had to admit I had lost my bearings, though as 
we were going steadily downhill, I knew we 
should arrive at the other side presently, as down- 
hill was our destination. What little conversation 
we indulged in — beyond the usual exclamations 
every time we tripped over something — had to 
be done in shouts, so high was the wind. 

In this way we tumbled on for about half an 
hour. Just as Virginia was confiding to me — 
fortissimo above the blizzard — how she wished 
she had been nicer to her family when she had 
the opportunity, and how sweet and forgiving 
she would have been to them all had she but 
known that I was going to take her out to an 
arctic grave, the snow ceased, the clouds broke, 
the moon appeared, and at the same time we 
cleared the wood and struck a familiar lane — 
" Agag's Path " we had named it, on account of 
the need for walking delicately. 

By way of keeping up our spirits, Ursula 
began to chant, to some lilting, sprightly tune, 
that most lugubrious poem, " Lucy Gray." 

" The storm came up before its time, 

She wandered up and down; 

And many a hill did Lucy climb, 

But never reached the town." 

127 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

When she got to the verse — 

" They followed from the snowy bank 
Those footmarks, one by one, 
Into the middle of the plank, 

And farther there were none ! " — 

Virginia exclaimed, " For mercy sake, if you 
must wail, do wail something cheerful and lively. 
* The Boy stood on the Burning Deck,' for 
instance, would warm one up a bit, instead of 
that other shivery thing." 

By the time we reached our gate the storm 
was over, though the wind was still sweeping 
restlessly over the hills. A dog belonging to a 
neighbouring farmer jumped over the garden 
wall. He had evidently called in the hope of 
getting a chance to settle a long-standing score 
he had against my own innocent-looking animal, 
who was ever a terrible fighter ! We paid no 
attention to the dog, however, but hurried up 
the path, only too thankful to see the lights of 
home, and glad that Eileen had forgotten to pull 
down the dark blinds. Nevertheless, I wondered 
that she did not open the door so soon as she 
heard the gate. I put my hand on the latch, 
but to my surprise the door was locked ! I 
rattled the latch and knocked. The dog whined 
inside and gave impatient little short barks 
which always mean a summons to someone to 
open the door and let me in. But the door 
remained locked. 

128 



Snow- 
drifts 

Then Eileen's voice within — 

" Are you quite by yourselves ? Has the 
wolf gone ? " 

" Open the door at once, and don't talk 
nonsense," I said firmly, trying not to sound as 
irritated as I felt. 

" Oh, but it isn't nonsense. I've seen thern 
out there ! One was there just now. And I'm 
not going to risk my life by opening the door if 
he's there still." 

Evidently our lives were unimportant ! " If 
you don't open the door this very instant," I 
said, "111 get in through the window. You 
must be out of your senses, and you have always 
professed to be so brave ! " 

The key grated in the lock, and the door 
opened half an inch, while Eileen's nose peeped 
at the crack, to make sure we were not the wolf. 
Then she explained, " If you'd been here for 
hours and hours, as I have " — (we had actually 
been gone an hour and a half, though I could 
understand the sudden storm, and our delay, had 
made her nervous) — " hearing those wolves out- 
side a-howling and howling and gnashing their 
horrid fangs, you wouldn't wonder I was afraid 
to open the door. I saw one skulking off just 
before you came in." 

I understood the situation immediately. 
" Eileen," I said severely, " what have you been 
reading ? " 

129 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

" 1 couldn't help just seeing what it was all 
about when I spread the sheets on the dresser. 
You said I must have fresh papers for the 
dresser and shelves " 

" Fresh paper on the dresser ? " I exclaimed, 
and went hurriedly into the kitchen. Sure 
enough, the dresser, the pantry and scullery 
shelves, and all other available surfaces, includ- 
ing the deep window-sill and the tops of the 
safes, had been carefully covered with white 
paper ; prompt investigation proved them to be 
pages from some of the various MSS. I had left 
in piles on the settle when I went out. Of course 
the writing was face downwards. I lifted things 
and examined what was beneath. The vegetable 
dishes on the dresser were reposing on portions 
of a serial story ; canisters, saltbox and biscuit- 
tins shared the back of one of a series of Nature 
Study articles ; the Siberian wolves were gnash- 
ing their horrid fangs beneath the knife-machine. 
I left the anonymous letter to an amiable if 
inglorious end, laid along the saucepan shelf, 
but I hurriedly collected the rest to the accom- 
paniment of Eileen's plaintive tones — 

" I thought you had put them there for 
waste paper. And the back of every sheet was 
so beautifully clean, and I had made my kitchen 
look so nice with them." 

All of which goes to illustrate the risk 
one runs in sending MSS. to editors, more 

130 



Snow- 
drifts 

especially to feminine editors possessed of 
kitchens. i 

Though the fall of snow did not last very 
long, the wind howled and moaned around the 
house all the evening, and roared in the wide 
chimneys like a 32-feet open diapason pedal 
pipe. Virginia suggested to Eileen that she 
should go out and put a little salt on the wolves' 
tails to see if that would quiet them. 

I thoroughly enjoy the moaning of the wind 
if I am surrounded by creature comforts — a big 
fire, a good cup of tea, or something interesting 
in that line. I never feel a desire for intellec- 
tual or introspective pursuits when the moan is 
most robust. When a raw nor'wester or a 
bullying sou'wester howls outside the door and 
windows, making the pine trees creak and 
groan like the wheels of an old timber waggon, 
and the evergreen firs wildly wave their branches 
like long dark plumes, I want to be able to hug 
myself to myself in the midst of warmth and 
good cheer, and in the company of some con- 
genial fellow being. Then I give the fire a 
further poke and another log, remarking con- 
tentedly : " Just hark at the wind ! What a 
night ! Isn't it cosy indoors ! " And the brass 
candlesticks on the mantelpiece, and the plates 
and jugs and dishes on the dresser blink 
acquiescence. 

131 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

Under such circumstances I love the howlers 
on these hills. But if I were a studious ascetic, 
burning the midnight oil — and very little else — 
I'm afraid that the sound of the wailing up and 
down the scale in minor sixths, coupled with the 
lack of comforting food and blazing fire and 
sympathetic companionship, would make me 
desperately melancholy indeed. 

Now we were indoors we could defy the 
weather, and here at least firewood was plentiful 
— not the " five sticks a penny, take it or leave 
it," that had been our portion in town, but as 
much as ever one wanted, and plenty more 
where the last came from. We soon had 
crackling blazes all over the house, and you 
should have seen Eileen's almost awestruck 
countenance when she was told to make herself 
a fire in her own bedroom ! " Now I know 
what it's like to be the Queen ! " she exclaimed. 

I had been literally fire-starved, owing to 
the need for economizing on fuel in town ; and 
now I was loose among my own woods again, 
with snapped branches lying in all directions 
among the undergrowth, I went in for an orgy 
of warmth. Large chunks of apple wood and 
stubby bits the wind had tossed down from the 
creaking fir-trees, made crackling glowing fires 
in the big open grates. An absurd butterfly 
unthawed itself from some crevice among the 
ceiling beams and came walking deliberately 

132 



Snow- 
drifts 

down the window curtain, evidently under 
the impression that s he was in for a sultry 
summer. 

For some time we sat and watched the 
splendour of it all. 

When you are burning logs from old, sea- 
going ships, you see again the blue and saffron 
of the sky, and the green and peacock tints of 
the ocean ; and in like manner you can see 
leaping from our forest logs the crimson and 
yellow and gold that once blazed in the autumn 
glory of the tree-covered hills, and the glow of 
the fire gives back the warmth and the sunshine 
that the trees caught in their leaves and 
cherished in their rugged branches. 

I dropped off to sleep that night with the 
flickering fire-glow whispering of comfort and 
rest for body and brain. Yes, despite the 
soothing balm of it all, and the certainty of 
safety from " the terror that walks by night " so 
that one could sleep without that sense of con- 
stant listening that has become second nature 
with those of us who live in town, I could not 
enjoy it with the old-time zest. Who could, 
with the thought ever on one's heart : what 
about this lad, and that one ? where are they 
lying this bitter night ? 

Physical sense becomes numbed when one 

133 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

lives perpetually in the shadow of possible 
tragedy. 

Probably it was the after-effect of our 
struggle with the wind and weather that caused 
us all to sleep very soundly that night ; at any 
rate, it was broad daylight before anyone stirred 
in the cottage next morning, and we missed the 
doings of the storm king in the interval. When 
I first opened my eyes I wondered what the 
white light could be that was reflected on the 
ceiling. Then I looked out of the window, and 
what a scene it was ! The whole earth, so far 
as the eye could see, was one vast fairyland of 
snow ; moreover, the face of creation appeared 
to have risen three or four feet nearer the bed- 
room window since last I had looked out, though 
the full import of this did not occur to me at the 
moment. I could merely look and look at the 
wonderful transformation that had been effected 
so rapidly and so silently while we slept. All 
trace of the garden had disappeared ; shrubs and 
trees alike were bowed down with billows of 
snow. In the more exposed places, the wind 
had blown some of the snow from the firs and 
larches, but for the most part the trees on the 
hillside were as laden with snow as those in 
the garden. We might have been high up in 
the Alps. The sun was trying to shine, and 
bringing a gleam and glint out of every snow 

134 



Snow- 
drifts 

crystal, but the sky still looked leaden in the 
north. 

Eileen, bringing the morning tea, imparted 
the thrilling intelligence that the snow was 
several feet deep outside the doors, the out- 
houses inaccessible. 

" Then we must clear the snow from the 
path ourselves," I said. " There is nothing else 
for it." The handy man was laid up with 
influenza in his home several fields away. And 
there was small likelihood of any other man 
coming our way. But the question of a few 
shovels of snow did not seem a serious matter ; 
we were quite lighthearted about it. 

When we made our first survey of the 
situation, however, we found that the snow was 
far higher outside the door than we had at first 
imagined. Owing to the position ot the house, 
and the way it nestles back in a little hollow 
that has been cut out of the hillside to give it 
level standing room, special inducement had 
been offered to the snow to pile itself up in 
drifts and block each door in a most effectual 
manner. Still — that snow had to be cleared 
away somehow, and we stood in the doorway 
and discussed methods. 

Hitherto I had always held the idea that 
people who allowed themselves to remain 
" snowed up " were very dull-witted and lacking 
in enterprise. Why not start clearing from the 

135 k 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

inside, beginning with the spadeful nearest the 
doorstep, and so go on clearing, space after 
space, until they had got through to the outer 
world ? To me it seemed quite an easy thing to 
do if you went about it systematically. But one 
slight detail had never occurred to me, viz., what 
should be done with the first spadeful of snow 
when you shovelled it up from beside the door- 
step, to say nothing of the next and the next ! 
That was one of the questions that bothered us 
now, though it was not the first difficulty we 
encountered. 

At the very outset, of course, we all said, 
" Just get a spade ! " But, alas, the spade was 
locked up in one of the inaccessible outhouses 1 
Next we called for a broom, but all brooms were 
in the same building. Then I said, "Well, 
bring some shovels." 

"Here's the kitchen shovel," said Eileen 
(Ursula pounced on that at once), "and here's 
the scoop from the coal-scuttle, and here's one 
of the small brass shovels from upstairs." 

" But where is the big iron shovel ? " I asked. 

" That's in the coal-shed " (likewise inacces- 
sible !). Virginia turned a deaf ear on the bed- 
room shovel, and possessed herself of the scoop. 
I had no alternative but to start work with the 
small brass affair that was about as effective as a 
fish-slice would have been ! 

We each shovelled up a mass (most of it 

136 



Snow- 
drifts 

tumbling off the shovel again before we got it 
into mid-air), and then we looked at each other 
and enquired what we were to do with it. It 
did not seem advisable to carry it inside the 
house ; and the only alternative was to toss it a 
foot or two away from us ; but then, that only 
meant adding to the pile already there, which in 
any case we should have to clear away before we 
could get anywhere ! It was a problem. 

In the end we managed to clear about a 
square foot, and make a few small burrows in 
the mound around us, by throwing the snow as 
far away as we could each time. But what was 
that foot ! We were still yards away from the 
coal-shed and the wood-house, with only a 
limited supply indoors, and still further away 
from the water. We had been working for a 
solid hour, and seemed to have raised a haystack 
of snow a little way off, where we had tossed our 
meagre shovelfuls. And then — as though to 
mock our feeble attempts — down came the snow 
again, and covered up the space we had cleared 
with such effort ! 

We looked at it in absolute despair. 

" Why was I born an unmarried spinster ? " 
exclaimed Ursula. " Oh, that a man would 
hove in sight — or whatever the present tense of 
'hove' may be." 

But no man obligingly hove in response I 

137 k 2 



Footprints 

The snow was meaning to have a good time of 
it ; there was no question about that Further 
work in the clearing line was obviously im- 
possible. 

Virginia tilted up her coal-scoop in the porch, 
beside the pathetic remains of small brass shovel 
No. 1 (which broke in half quite early in the 
proceedings), and small brass shovel No. 2 
(which also was giving wobbly indications of 
impending collapse). Ursula, possessing the 
only serviceable tool in the whole collection, 
had with unusual forethought carried in the 
kitchen shovel, and hidden it surreptitiously — 
realising that it was a much-coveted treasure at 
that moment. 

But she did suggest that if we just took the 
ladder upstairs and let it down out of the end 
bedroom window she could climb down, and 
that would bring her close to the wood shed ; 
she could get from the roof of that on to a low 
wall, and walk along the wail to the gate, which 
she would then climb over (as it was blocked 
each side with snow), and in this way she could 
get out into the lane to the spring of water, and 
bring back a can of water by the same route. 

138 



Foot- 
prints 

This she would tie to a cord let down from the 
bedroom windows which could then be hauled 
up. Then she would get into the wood shed — 
which would not be difficult, as the door opened 
inwards, and would not be blocked by the snow 
on the inside ; getting together some logs, she 
would next lash them up so that they also could 
be hauled up like the water ; finally, she would 
herself return, via the roof and the ladder and 
the bedroom window, to the bosom of the 
family. 

This suggestion was received with gratitude, 
only everyone else wanted to take Ursula's place, 
and make the tour instead of her. We pointed 
out to her that, as she had already meanly 
annexed the only workable shovel, she ought at 
least to relinquish the role of leading lady in this 
expedition. We might have wasted much time 
in arguing with her had not Eileen reminded us 
that the ladder — like everything else we needed 
— was up the garden safely snowed up under the 
laurel hedge. So that project fell through. 

" We may as well leave that collection of old 
metal in the porch," said Virginia, " since there 
is no fear of callers arriving and putting us to the 
blush this afternoon." Then there was nothing 
left to do but to stamp off the snow, and shed 
rubbers, and ulsters, and scarfs, and woollen 
gloves, and possess our souls in patience indoors, 
till such time as the snow should give over. 

i39 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

" And to think how I've always prided 
myself on going away from home prepared for 
every emergency ! " sighed Virginia. " My 
dressing-case is simply crammed with such 
valuable data as a bandage for a possible sprained 
ankle, court plaster, a pocket-knife with a cork- 
screw on it, a specially strong smelling-bottle for 
fainty ones, a nightlight, a box of matches, 
ammoniated quinine, wedges for rattling win- 
dows, a box of tin-tacks — no, not a hammer, I 
always use the heel of my shoe — a two-foot rule 
— what should I want that for? I'm sure I 
don't know, but then you never can tell ! But 
with all my precautions, it never occurred to me 
to pack a spade and broom in with my luggage. 
This snowstorm has shown me the weak points 
in my outfit." 

" It has shown me the weak points in my 
joints," groaned Ursula. " And, moreover, I 
never knew before how many parts of us there 
were that could ache. I'm just painful from 
head to foot. I never realised what a noble, 
self-sacrificing calling snow-shovelling is. And 
when I think of the men who come round in 
town, offering to sweep the snow from the path 
— and a good long path too — for a few pence, it 
seems a positive scandal that they should get so 
little. I'm sure there is quite ten shillings' 
worth of me used up already ! " 

We certainly did ache. And only those who 

140 



Foot- 
prints 

have been suddenly called upon to attack a bank 
of snow, with inexperience and feeble tools, can 
know the extent of our stiffness. We were 
content to let it snow, without the slightest 
desire to crick our backs any further. And after 
all there is something exceedingly restful and 
soothing to over-worked brain and over-strained 
nerves, in merely sitting in a low chair by a 
roaring fire, taking only such exercise as is 
required to put on an extra log, secure in the 
knowledge that neither telegram, nor visitor, 
nor any communication whatsoever from the 
outside world can possibly break in upon the 
quiet and peace. You need to spend your life 
in the heart of the great metropolis, amid the 
never-ceasing turmoil of London streets, with 
your days one long maddening distraction of 
callers, telephone bells, endless queries and 
perpetual noise, to appreciate ithe joy of the 
solitude in that snowed-up cottage among the 
hills. 

For long months and months the guns in 
Flanders had sent a muffled boom over my 
London garden every hour of the day, and had 
shaken my windows violently every hour of the 
night ; and there is no need to set down in 
writing the ache and the anxiety that each dull 
thud brought to the heart. Every one who has 
husband or brother or son out yonder knows 

141 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

what question comes wafted over each time the 
guns send out their deadly roll. 

But our craving for quiet was not a desire to 
get out of earshot of the guns. It dated farther 
back than the War ; it was the inevitable out- 
come of the over- wrought hurry of the twentieth 
century, when one's nerves get so frazzled in the 
vain attempt to do everything, and do it all at 
once, that at last life is simply one intense longing 
for that " nest in the wilderness " out of reach 
of the clamour of the market-place and the 
vain, foolish, soul-wearing struggle for material 
things. 

In that enchanted period of life, known as 
" before the War," we used often to discuss the 
desirability of moving to an uninhabited island 
and spending the rest of our days there in un- 
alloyed peace. It had been an absorbing dream 
with me, ever since I first read Sarah Orne 
Jewett's book, The Country of the Pointed Firs. 
I dare say it was selfish to think of being quite 
out of reach of the noise and dirt and bustle and 
din of cities, and where there would be no next- 
door piano, and no gramophone in the house the 
other side, and no soots floating in the windows 
— but it was a very pleasant one, and I used to 
add to it occasionally by imagining what it would 
be like to wake up one morning and find that 
some unknown but generous friend had left me 
an uninhabited island as a legacy ; one not far 

142 



Foot- 
prints 

from the mainland, and somewhere around the 
British Isles, of course. 

When such a thing happens, it will find me 
quite prepared, for we have built the house there, 
and furnished it, and mapped out our life there 
many and many a time ; all I am waiting for is 
— the island I That seems hard to come by ! 
I've had one or two offered me (not as gifts, but 
to purchase), like Lundy, for instance, but they 
cost too much and are not uninhabited. So we 
have still to content ourselves with plans only. 

We were recalled to The Island (we always 
refer to it in capital letters) as we sat round the 
fire, by Virginia inquiring what books I should 
take with me when I moved there. She said 
she concluded that, being a booky sort of a 
person, a library would be an essential. 

But I set my face firmly against taking un- 
necessary literature. My house gets choked 
with books, ninety per cent, of which I never 
open a second time. I am for ever turning them 
out, and yet they go on accumulating. Virginia 
has a perfect mania for hoarding impossible 
books, that she could never find time to read 
through again if she lived to be the age of 
Methuselah ; yet she keeps them all, on the 
chance that some day she may require to refer 
to a solitary sentence in one of them. Her 
cupboards are full, and her shelves are packed 
behind and before, and she has had sets of 

*43 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

drawers made just to hold " papers " ; which 
neans hundredweights of abstruse pamphlets, 
ind learned magazines, and cuttings — well, I 
dare say you know the sort of girl she is, and 
what it's like when their flat gets spring-cleaned, 
and she insists that no one must lay a finger on 
her books ! 

Ursula isn't much better ; but at least she is 
more practical, and believes in spring cleaning ; 
hence, in her case, she does have a turn-out occa- 
sionally, and just throws away indiscriminately 
whole shelf-loads of books in a fit of desperation, 
when she has managed to get every article in the 
flat jumbled up in a heap in the room it has no 
business in, and no one can find anything. I 
believe at such time she surreptitiously disposes 
of some of Virginia's tomes, too ; but this I only 
suspect. At any rate, Virginia is always be- 
wailing a number of " most important books " 
that never can be found after one of Ursula's 
domestic upheavals. 

Knowing all this, I said that only a definite 
number of books would be allowed on The 
Island. Both girls said it would be impossible 
to fix any limit that would meet the case. I 
said I was quite sure humanity, more especially 
the intellectual feminine portion of it, could do 
with far less books than they thought they could. 

Vehement protests ! 

Then I suggested, to prove my words, that 

144 



Foot- 
prints 

we should each start to make out a list of the 
books we couldn't possibly do without on The 
Island — only those we couldn't possibly do with- 
out — and see what it amounted to. " Jot down 
any book or author that occurs to us as being 
essential, irrespective of any sort of classifica- 
tion," I said. " And we had better compare 
notes every ten books, as we go along." 

Forthwith, we each scribbled down our first 
ten absolutely indispensable books (they were to 
be exclusive of religious and devotional works). 
When we compared notes in a few minutes' 
time, these were our lists : — 

Virginia. 
Encyclopaedia. 
A Dictionary. 
Jane Austen's Novels. 
" The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain." 
A Time Table. 
Franklin's "Voyages." 
" Punch " (regularly). 
A good Atlas. 

" The Spectator " (regularly). 
"A Child's Garden of Verse." R. L, 
Stevenson. 

Ursula. 
A good Guide to London. 
A large selection of Needlework and Crochet 
Books. 

Hi 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

My old Scrapbook. 

Mudie's Catalogue. 

An Almanac giving the changes of the moon. 

" The Old Red Sandstone." Hugh Miller. 

The Stores Price List. 

Mrs. Hemans' Poems. 

The Scottish Student's Song Book. 

Kipling's " Kim." 

Self. 

All Ruskin's Works. 

" The Wide, Wide World." 

" The Country of the Pointed Firs." S. O. 

Jewett. 
All my Gardening Books and Florists' Seed 

Catalogues. 
All my Wild Flower Books. 
" A Little Book of Western Verse." Eugene 

Field. 
Poems by Ann and Jane Taylor. 
All my Cookery Books. 
All the Board of Agriculture's Leaflets. 
A Book on Deer Culture. 

Of course, we each gazed in profound surprise 
and contempt on the others' lists, and asked why 
this and that had been put down. Why did 
Ursula want a guide to London, when the object 
of going to The Island was to get away from 
London ? 

146 



Foot- 
prints 

She said she thought you ought to keep in 
touch with things even if you were away ; and if 
it came to that, why did I want a Deer book, 
since I couldn't look at venison ? 

I said I felt it in me that I should start 
keeping deer as soon as I landed, and there was 
more sense in doing that than in reading a Time 
Table, for instance ! 

Virginia protested a Time Table was abso- 
lutely essential, else how would you ever be able 
to get away when you wanted to? And you 
never knew when you might be summoned to 
anyone's funeral in a hurry, and was she supposed 
to be cut off from all human enjoyment ? 
Whereas no one could possibly want a Student's 
Song Book, when they couldn't sing two notes in 
tune ; and, also, why Mrs. Hemans, might she 
venture to ask ? 

" Yes, who would dream of carting around a 
Mrs. Hemans in these days ? " I scoffed. 

" The frontispiece engraving of Mrs. Hemans 
always reminded me of mother's Aunt Matilda," 
said Ursula impressively. " I only saw her 
twice, but on the first occasion she gave me a 
doll, and on the second a blue and white bead 
necklace ; I've got three of the beads left, in my 
workbox. And I've always loved beads, and I 
loved her in consequence, and I wouldn't dream 
of being parted from Mrs. Hemans. And, in 
any case, why bring a Dictionary ? " 

H7 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

" Because 1 may require to look up a more 
expressive word occasionally, or enlarge my flow 
of vocabulary," Virginia explained. "And I 
conclude I'm not expected to be absolutely dumb 
when we get there ! " 

Of course, I don't mean to imply that these 
are necessarily the books we should have named 
had we sat down thoughtfully to compile a list 
most representative of our tastes and needs ; but 
whatever list I had made, I'm sure I should have 
included the volumes I named ; and it goes to 
show that the books that make an individual 
appeal to us are not necessarily those that our 
friends expect us to name. 

The library catalogue was never completed, 
for, before we had time further to criticize each 
other's preferences, we were pulled up short by 
a sound. 

We all stopped our chatter on an instant, for 
surely and certainly there could be no mis- 
taking it, there was the ring of an iron spade 
chinking on stone ! When last we had looked 
out, just after breakfast, not a stone had been 
visible for a spade to chink against in the 
whole vicinity. We flew to the door, and there, 
touching his hat with a smiling " Good morning, 
ma'am," stood the elderly handy man who ought 
to have been in bed with his bad cold ; and 
behold, a clear path to the lane. He had worked 
from the gate inwards, and we had been so busy 

148 



Foot- 
prints 

with our discussions indoors, we had not heard 
him till he reached the porch. 

"I was only able to get down downstairs 
yesterday," the invalid explained. " But in any 
case it wasn't no good coming over till that spell 
o' snow was down, even if I'd been fit to come 
out." Then, after a detailed description of 
symptoms and sufferings and so forth — " Yes, I 
think there's a good bit more to come down yet. 
Nothing won't be able to be got up from the 
village yet awhile ; they tell me the drifts is 
eight feet deep in places. Maybe in a few days 
111 be able to get down. I'll be wanting some 
sharps soon myself for the fowls, so I'll have to 
try and get down by the end of the week. And 
the butcher's killing himself this w T eek, I could 
bring you up a j'int. I've knocked up a good 
bit of kindling wood in the wood shed, so you'll 
be all right now." 

Yes, we were all right now, from one point 
of view ; but I devoutly hoped he would not 
wait till the end of the week before he went for 
those " sharps," for I had discovered that we had 
only one loaf in the house I And as they only 
bake twice a week in our village, and everyone 
knows how long war bread won't keep, I need 
only add that already we had to cut off all the 
outside before bringing it to table, and by 
to-morrow it would be quite gorgonzola-ish right 
through ! 

149 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

As soon as he had gone, Ursula burst forth, 
" Don't talk to me any more of the rights o1 
women " — no one had been, but we let it pass — 
'don't tell me they are the equals of men, and 
that all they want is a good education and scope 
for their energies. Look at us, haven't we all 
had good educations ? " (Ursula and her sister 
are thoroughly acquainted with the literature of 
several European countries ; they read Plato in 
the original ; and can give you reliable informa- 
tion on such points as the similarity between the 
tribes on the borders of Tibet and the Pata- 
gonians— if any exists. They can certainly be 
called well educated. ) " And wasn't there scope 
enough for our energies out there ? And then 
consider what we accomplished ! While a man 
like that comes along — says he never went to 
school in his life, just risen from a sick bed, too, 
so none too strong — yet in an hour or so he's 
done what we should not have got through in a 
month. And look at the neat job he's made of 
it, with the snow banked up trimly on each side ; 
why, we were about as effective and as artistic 
as three fowls scratching on the surface of things. 
And then look at the stack of wood he got ready 
in no time. I'm sure I blushed to see him 
gazing at that collection of decrepit shovels 
standing in the porch " 

" And well you might blush," edged in Vir- 
ginia, " remembering how you selfishly stuck to 

150 



Foot- 
prints 

the only decent shovel there was, with never so 
much as an offer to either of us to have a turn." 

" — Yes, we ought to have votes, were so — 
capable ! " Ursula went on, but I begged her not 
to worry her head about votes just now, as the 
question of food was of greater national import- 
ance. 

At the word " food " of course everyone was 
all attention, and we made ourselves into a Privy 
Council, and they appointed me Food Controller, 
because it would give them the right to do all 
the grumbling. But the matter was not quite 
as much of a joke as they thought. For so long 
they had been accustomed to a pantry stocked 
with bottles and tins and stores of all descrip- 
tions (and Virginia once remarked that to read 
the labels alone — if you had lost the tin-opener — 
was quite as good as a seven-course meal at a 
fashionable restaurant), that they forgot things 
were not like that now ! In the dairy, too 
(which we use as a larder), it was the usual pre- 
war thing to see large open jam tarts in deep 
dishes, with a fancy trellis work over the top of 
the jam, and large pies w r ith lovely water-lilies, 
made from the scraps of paste, on top, and 
spicy brown cakes, with a delicious odour, 
standing on the stone slabs — Abigail being a 
capital hand at pastry and cakes. The dairy is 
built on the north side, close under the hill, and 
the great stone wall that keeps the hill from 

151 l 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

tumbling down on top of the dairy is packed with 
hart's-tongue and the British maiden-hair fern, 
and rosettes of the pretty little scaly spleenwort, 
and lacy tufts of wall rue, and practically every 
other kind of fern that loves damp shade and the 
English climate. And ivy runs over the lot 
right up to the top, where wild roses and honey- 
suckle and blackberry ramp about in the sun- 
shine, and often peep down to see how it fares 
with their comrades in the cool ravine below. 
The long fronds of the fern wave in at the dairy 
window, and the ivy sends out little fingers, 
catching hold wherever it can, and creeping in, 
very much at home, through the wire-netting 
that does duty for a window. My guests always 
like to go into the dairy to see the wonderful 
array of ferns ; but I sometimes suspect it is also 
to gaze on the appetizing-looking things that 
appeal irresistibly to all who have spent an hour 
or two in our hungry air ! 

But war had made a considerable difference 
alike to pantry and store-cupboard and larder, 
and we had to trust to the promise of Miss 
Jarvis, the lady at the village shop — and one of 
the most valuable members of the communitv — 
that we should not actually starve ! As the stocks 
had been used, they had not been replenished. 
Cinnamon buns, lemon-curd cheese cakes, fruit 
cakes with a nice crack in the top, were no 
longer piled up in the larder. No home-cured 

152 



Foot- 
prints 

ham, sewn up in white muslin, hung from the 
big hook in the kitchen ceiling. No large, dried, 
golden-coloured vegetable mariows hung up 
beside it for winter use. 

We had plenty of potatoes, fortunately (and 
never had we valued potatoes as we did this 
year !), and we had the usual " remains " that 
are in the larder, when the butcher has not 
called for a few days and a family lives from 
hand to mouth, as one has had to do recently, 
lest one should be suspected of hoarding ! 

There was a tin of lunch biscuits, some 
cheese, and cereals ; but the rest of the store 
cupboard seemed exasperatingly useless when it 
came to sustaining life in a snow-bound house- 
hold. What good was a tin of linseed, for 
instance, or a bottle of cayenne, or a bottle of 
evaporated horse-radish (with the sirloin pre- 
sumably still gambolling about somewhere in 
the valley) ? Why had I ever laid in a bottle of 
tarragon vinegar, a bottle of salad dressing, a 
box of rennet tablets, a tin of curry powder, 
desiccated cocoanut, a bottle of chutney ? Even 
the tin of baking powder and the nutmegs and 
capers seemed extravagant and superfluous. Oh, 
for a simple glass of tongue — but we had opened 
our only one the day we arrived ! 

One thing was certain : while the snow 
remained at its present depth, to say nothing of 
an increase, no provisions could be got up from 

153 L 2 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

the village. The steep roads were like glass the 
last time we were out ; now they would be 
impassable for horses or vehicles, even though a 
man might manage to get over them somehow. 
Milk we could obtain from a neighbouring farm, 
perhaps a few eggs, possibly a fowl as a very 
special favour, now that our path was cleared ; 
but that was the utmost we could hope to raise 
locally. The point to be considered was : How 
long could we hold out ? 

" Well, there is only one other thing I can 
think of," said Virginia ; " you must fly signals oi 
distress, and hoist a flag up at the top of the 
chimney — they always do in books. . . . How 
are you to get the flag up the chimney ? I'm 
sure / don't know if you don't ! What's the good 
of being an editor if you don't know a simple 
little thing like that ? " 

But the problem was solved for me by a tap 
at the door, and then one realised the superiority 
ot the servants of the Crown over all ordinary 
individuals. It was the postman. He said 
" Good morning " with the modest air of one 
who knows he has accomplished a great deed, 
but leaves it for others to extol. 

" I've brought up the letters," he said ; " but 
I couldn't get up the parcels to-day. There are 
a good many." I knew what that meant. My 
post is necessarily a very heavy one, more 
especially when I am away from town, and 

154 



Foot- 
prints 

great packages of things are sent down daily. 
" Is there anything I can take back with me ? r 
he inquired. 

I hastily scribbled some itelegrams on urgent 
matters, glad of this chance to get them sent 
off; and I knew the Head of Affairs would be 
glad to hear we were all well. As I handed 
them to the man, he rather hesitatingly pro- 
duced a bulky newspaper parcel that had been 
hidden under his big mackintosh cape, with an 
apologetic look, as it were, to the Crown, that 
the garment should have been put to so un- 
official an use. Then in an undertone, lest the 
Postmaster-General in London might overhear, 
he said — 

" Miss Jarvis was afraid you might be 
running short of things." The thoughtful Lady 
of the Village Shop had sent up a loaf, a piece 
of bacon and a pound of sugar. How I blessed 
her ! 

Next day he managed to get up some of the 
small postal packages. The first one I opened 
was from one of the Assistant Editors in town. 

" I see in the papers that you've had a heavy 
fall of snow," she wrote, " and as there was not 
a solitary line from you this morning, I'm 
wondering if you are isolated ? At any rate, 
I'm sending you a home-made cake and a box 
of smoked sausages by this post (instead of 
MSS.) in case you may be cut off from supplies." 

i55 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

" If that isn't bed-rock common sense," said 
Ursula. "Most intelligent girls would have 
improved the occasion by sending you news- 
paper cuttings with statistics of the latest sub- 
marine sinkings, to keep your spirits up." 

Another slight fall of snow was all the late 
afternoon brought us, not enough to spoil the 
newly cleared path, but sufficient to reveal the 
fact next morning that someone with large 
masculine boots had been promenading round 
the cottage, for there were the footprints, a clear 
track that even a detective could not have failed 
to see, leading from the gate to the outhouses, 
from the outhouses to the scullery door, from 
the scullery door to the best door (it's absurd to 
call it the front door, because each side is as 
much the front as the other excepting the part 
that backs into the hill !), from the best door to 
the door with the porch, and so on, out of the 
gate again. 

As none of us knew anything about them, 
we concluded the handy man must have returned, 
bent on some new errand of mercy. But he 
disowned them ; had not been near the place 
since the previous forenoon, and the snow had 
not fallen till five o'clock. It looked exceed- 
ingly queer, not to say uncanny, and we recalled 
the fact that the dog had barked violently after 
we were in bed. So far as I knew, there was 
no resident on those hills who would think of 

156 



Foot- 
prints 

wandering round the house after dark ; and no 
tramp or odd wayfarer would ever scale those 
heights unless he had some very urgent reason 
for so doing, and had a definite destination. It 
is too stiff a climb to take on a casual chance of 
picking up anything ; moreover, unless a man 
knew his way, he would soon lose himself. 
Though the footprints really perplexed me, I did 
not say very much about them ; but Eileen did. 

When Mr. Jones from a neighbouring farm 
arrived with milk, I heard the full description 
being given him at the kitchen door. He 
expressed due interest, and described a mys- 
terious case he had just read about, in the 
weekly paper, of a servant who had disappeared 
from a house in London where she had been in 
service for years, and no trace of her had been 
found since. Eileen and he agreed as to the 
many points of similarity between the two 
cases. 

When the lad from the butcher's came to 
know what portion I wished to bespeak of the 
sheep they would be killing, come Friday, I 
heard Eileen once more going through the story 
of the footprints, combined with details of the 
missing domestic. He, in turn, told her how a 
burglar had been one morning in a house next 
door to his grandmother's in Bristol, and how, 
when they chased him, he jumped right over the 
garden wall, into the very dish of potatoes his 

157 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

aunt was peeling for his dinner. (The pronouns 
were confusing, but I don't think it was for the 
burglar's dinner the potatoes were intended.) 

The farmer's daughter who came to inquire 
if I would like a fowl, after hearing the story, 
offered to lend Eileen a novelette she had just 
been reading, where there were footprints exactly 
like these ; and in the last chapter it turns out 
that the footprints were those of — I forget who 
or what, but it was very enthralling, and Eileen 
gratefully jumped at the offer of the loan. 

The old man who came to say that they 
couldn't deliver any coals till the weather broke, 
remarked that he didn't like the look of it at all, 
and said he should be quite nervous if he were 
she, and asked her if she had heard about the 
old woman who had been found dead in her 
bed in Yorkshire, died of cold, and fifty golden 
sovereigns tied up in the middle of her pillow ? 
Eileen had not heard of it. The old man said it 
was as well to keep your eyes open, as there 
were funny people in the world, and this seemed 
to him just such another affair. 

And much more to the same effect. 

That night I was suddenly awakened by a 
sound, though at first I could not tell what it 
was. I lay wide awake, holding my breath : 
then it came again, a gentle rasp, rasp, as though 
someone were scraping something with a metal 

158 



Foot- 
prints 

tool. At the same moment I heard Virginia 
and Ursula stirring in the next room. I stole in 
to them ; they too were listening. And then 
we realised that the burglar had really come ! 
From the direction of the sound we knew he 
was scraping away the putty, or something of 
the sort, from a pane of glass that was let into 
the scullery door. If he managed to get through 
that, he could undo the bolt, and would be free 
of the place. 

What were we to do, we asked each other in 
whispers ? Of course, previously, I had always 
known what I should do if a burglar ever came 
to my house. I should go downstairs, throw 
open the door and confront him unafraid, asking 
him in a firm but most melodious voice what 
had brought him to such a low moral depth, and 
urging him to better things. He would be so 
undone by the sight of me and the sound of the 
music of my voice, that he would crumple up 
at my feet and confess all his past burglaries. 
Whereupon, I should motion him to come in 
and take a seat, while I hastily prepared a cup 
of Bovril, and cut him a large plate of cold roast 
beef; and on his observing that I had passed 
him the mustard pot without first removing the 
silver spoon, he would be so overcome by my 
confidence in him that he would voluntarily vow 
to turn over a new leaf. He would leave with 
half-a-crown in his pocket. And years after- 

159 



/ 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

wards a prosperous man would knock at my 
door, bearing in his hand half-a-crown, etc. 

But this particular case did not seem to fit in 
with my previous programme for the reception 
of burglars. In the first place there was no 
Bovril in the house ; and secondly, there was no 
beef, only a tiny piece of cold mutton in the 
larder — and you can't do anything heroic with 
only cold mutton. 

Meanwhile the man was scraping away down- 
stairs, and we did not know but what he would 
be in upon us any moment. 

" Shall we let the dog loose ? " said Virginia. 

" The dog ! " I repeated. " Why, where is 
the dog ? Why isn't he barking ? " Until 
that moment we had forgotten him entirely. 
There was no sound of him below ; and he is a 
ferocious little thing if strangers come anywhere 
near the place. 

" Oh, then they've poisoned him ! " gasped 
Ursula, almost in tears. " They've got some 
poisoned meat in to him somehow, under the 
door perhaps, and he'll be lying there a corpse, 
and we never thinking of him." We all three 
crept as silently as we could downstairs, to find 
" the corpse " remarkably cheerful, with his nose 
at the crack of an outer door, every hair of his 
body on end with tension, his ears cocked up, 
and every muscle of him on the alert — but not a 
ghost of a bark did he give, only a perfunctory 

160 



Foot- 
prints 

waggle of his tail, just as an acknowledgment of 
our presence, and an apology that he was too 
much engaged at the moment to give us more 
attention. There was not much poison about 
that dog ! As the scraping got louder, and my 
teeth were chattering violently (but only with 
the cold, as I explained to the other two), I fled 
upstairs again, and they followed. 

" What do you usually do when burglars 
come ? " whispered Virginia. 

" I don't know. I've never had one before," 
I moaned. 

" Didn't you once tell me you had a bell, or 
something of the sort ? " said Ursula. 

" Why, yes ; I had forgotten that." I keep 
a huge bell under the bed at the head, and I 
always intended to ring it violently out of the 
window if a burglar ever came. (Scrape, scrape, 
scrape, continued down below.) " I don't sup- 
pose anyone on these hills would wake up to 
listen ; but, at any rate, it might worry the 
burglar and send him off." 

" Let's ring it now," said Virginia eagerly, 
" and then, when he is well outside the gate, of 
course, we'll let the dog run out after him." 

" Yes," I agreed. " But first I want to 
go into Eileen's room, and peep out of her 
window and see ivho is below. Her window 
is just over the scullery door, and is always 
open at night. If it is anyone from the district 

161 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

— though I don't believe it is — I should recognise 
him." 

So we tip-toed into Eileen's room, where she 
lay sound asleep. 

" When I give the signal, you ring," I said. 

Cautiously, slowly, silently, I got my head a 
little further and further out of the window, 
shaking with ague from head to foot. And there 
I saw the burglar — he was Farmer Jones's dog 
(alias the wolf, you remember), and he had got 
hold of a sardine tin that had been emptied that 
day. He was having a lovely time, licking that 
tin out, and as he licked, so it scraped and 
scraped on the stones. No wonder my own dog 
did not bark ; he knew it was his ancient enemy 
without, and the instinct of the dog of war was 
to wait stealthily till the foe should get within 
his reach. 

" Don't ring the bell ! ' I whispered 
hoarsely, and we crept out of the room. 

" I think it's just as well Eileen did not 
wake," I said, as we made ourselves a midnight 
cup of tea before turning in again, " for I've no 
desire to hear this episode being related all day 
long at the kitchen door ! " 

Have you ever sat by the fire indoors, when 
the ground has been covered with snow, and the 
sky grey and heavy, till you have been " abso- 
lutely perished with the cold," and then someone 

162 



Foot- 
prints 

has come and dragged you out (or, if you have 
wonderfully uncommon sense, you have dragged 
yourself out), and plunged right into it — a 
shrivelled-up martyr ! After ten minutes spent 
in trying to sweep the snow from the path, what 
have you felt like ? 

I plunged right out into it — simply because 
the two girls were bragging such a deal about 
their own heroic fortitude in forsaking the fire- 
side at the call of life's stern duties, or something 
like that. But first of all I put on a knitted 
hug-me-tight ; then my leather motoring under- 
coat ; then my big cloth coat ; and finally, my 
mackintosh. I tied on a woollen sports cap 
with a winter motor scarf ; I turned up my coat 
collar, and put on a fur necklet ; and, of course, 
I didn't forget gaiters and warm gloves. 

Then I stood on the doorstep and looked out 
— if you believe me, the cold went right through 
me, and fairly rattled my bones inside. 

Still, I wasn't going to be outdone in misery 
by the other two, and noticing that the bushes 
were actually breaking down under the load of 
snow, I seized a broom and sallied forth. After 
all, if one has to die a martyr's death, one may 
as well occupy the final moments in doing useful 
kindnesses for one's family. 

It is some sort of solace to picture how they 
will eventually say, " To think of her doing all 

that, when " ; or, " To the last she never 

163 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

gave in ; why only the very day 1 " ; 

or, " Ah ! how often have I seen the poor 
dear ! " etc. 

So I made for the pink rhododendron, that 
was suffering badly ; being evergreen, its large 
rosettes of leaves, surrounding each flower-bud 
of the future, had caught and held great masses 
of snow ; the lower branches were literally buried 
beneath the heavy drifts. 

But as I found I couldn't get at it without 
clearing a way through a three-foot bank of 
snow, I set to work with a spade. It sounds 
simple enough, I know ; but unless you've been 
getting your living at snow-clearing, you would 
never believe what a lot there is to it, when you 
start to make a nice serviceable path through 
a drift from two to three feet deep, and six feet 
long. 

I reached the pink rhododendron at last. 
Getting my broom against a main stem, I shook 
it gently. What a lovely shower came down ! 
1 don't know that I needed it all over me, 
personally ; nor was it necessary to choke up 
half the cutting I had just made. Still, down it 
came, white billows and a rain of silver powder. 
I never knew what snow was really like, till I 
shook it all over me, and the sun suddenly came 
out and turned the cascade to a gleaming white 
radiance. 

Having got well smothered to start with, I 

164 



Foot- 
prints 

decided I might just as well go on ; and that I 
could dispense with the motor undercoat, which 
I left hanging on the bush. Lower down the 
garden I could hear the clink and scrape of 
shovel and spade against the stones, as the other 
two cleared the snow from the various little 
flights of rough stone steps that take you up or 
down, from one level of the garden to another. 
But I didn't feel like clearing steps just then ; 
it was too niggly. I wanted something bigger 
than that, and I somehow had a desire to work 
alone, so I struck a path that went up the 
garden, and began to work my way towards the 
top gate, clearing as I went. 

As I bent over the smooth glistening surface, 
I was amazed to see the number of messages 
written there for those who know the language 
of the wilds well enough to read them ! What 
a scurrying to and fro of little feet had been 
going on since the snowfall, all on the one quest 
— food and water ! Birds innumerable had left 
their signatures ; some I knew, some I could not 
identify, save that they were birds. Rabbits I 
could trace ; stoats, too, might have made some 
of the writing in the snow ; and there were 
bigger tracks — perhaps a fox. 

Everywhere there were tidings of other way- 
farers, other workers, other seekers — the many 
other dwellers who have their homes somewhere 
between the larch-woods and the weir. The 

165 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

moment before the place had seemed a frost- 
locked, deserted, uninhabitable waste of snow ; 
now I saw it was teeming with life, brave, per- 
sistent, not-to-be-daunted life, that in spite of 
cold and hardship and privation and a universal 
stoppage of supplies, still set out, with un- 
quenchable faith, on the quest for the food 
which they have learnt to know is invariably 
forthcoming, "in due season." 

The surprising thing to me is the fact that 
such small bodies can ever survive such a welter 
of snow. Aren't they afraid they will sink down 
and be swallowed up in it ? Have they no fear 
lest they lose their w r ay, with the old landmarks 
obliterated ? Doesn't it strike terror to the 
heart when they find their doorway blocked, and 
themselves snowed up in burrow or hole ? Yet, 
judging by outside evidence, it would seem that 
none of these things daunt them ; an obstacle is 
merely something to be surmounted. 

To my mind the most pathetic thing about 
it all is the fact that their chief fear seems to be 
fear of human beings, a dread of the very ones 
who could, and ought to, befriend them. 

In my clearing I moved a small wooden box 
that had been used for seedlings, and since had 
lain unnoticed beside a hedge. Underneath a 
tiny field mouse had taken refuge. It seemed 
almost paralysed with terror when I suddenly 
lifted the box, and escape was blocked on every 

1 66 



Foot- 
prints 

side by banks of snow. The poor little thing 
just sat up on its hind legs and looked at me 
most pitifully. I can't say that I exactly culti- 
vate mice, in an ordinary way, but — here was a 
fellow-creature in distress, such a little one too ; 
I couldn't have refused its appeal. I quickly 
put the box over it again, and clearing a space 
by the hole it had used as a door, I put down 
some bird-seed — I always carry something in 
my coat pocket for the birds — and I went away. 
Ten minutes later, every bit was gone. 

Working my away round to another thicket 
of rhododendrons, that is a bank of purple and 
creamy white in June, once more I sent the 
silver-dust flying with my trusty broom. As one 
great mass came hurtling down, it so deluged 
me that for the moment I had to hold my breath, 
shut my eyes, and clutch on to a branch to keep 
myself from being buried under it. And then I 
heard a tragic whimper. 

Turning round, I saw the small white dog, 
shaking himself out of the mass — and such a 
dingy-dirty object his passe white coat looked 
against the snow ! 1 had left him indoors, a 
melancholy little figure, very sorry for himself, 
by reason of a swelled face. He will persist in 
lying with his nose to the bottom crack of the 
back door, irrespective of wind or weather, ever 
hopeful that a hare or a fox may come trailing 

167 M 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

by ; and then — oh joy ! what a turmoil there is 
within (he quite fancies he is " baying "), and 
what a scurrying of fur and feet without ! 

Having got him in, and rubbed him down, 
and wrapped him up in his favourite bit of old 
blanket, and given him a bone (which he couldn't 
eat, poor little chap, but he had it in his basket 
with him, against such times as his mouth was 
in working order again), I returned to the garden 
— you couldn't have kept me out of it now ! T 
found I didn't need the hug-me- tight, however, 
and I left it on the orchard gate. 

What a work it was, tumbling over stone 
edgings one forgot were there, tripping over tree 
trunks and logs — the whole place seemed strewn 
with obstacles one never noticed until the snow 
covered them over. 

I picked myself up continually, and worked on 
with my broom. Virginia came up once to point 
out to me my appalling lack of scientific method ; 
but as I have never had any illusions on this 
point, it didn't worry me. Ursula volunteered 
the information that I looked like Don Quixote 
tilting at a windmill, each time I attacked a 
bush or tree. I knew she was merely jealous of 
my ability. I'm not one to let a little thing 
like that deter me from my course of well-doing. 
I merely took off my fur necklet and thick 
motor scarf, and left them on a stile, so sunburnt 
was I getting beneath them. 

168 



Foot- 
prints 

And how grateful even the dry cracking 
twigs of the rose bushes seemed to be for the 
lifting of the load that bowed down one and all. 
The hollies had been trying bravely to hold up 
their heads, but it was hard work ; every leaf 
had held out a little curved hand to catch a few 
snowflakes as they fell, and the total result was 
a mound that threatened to break the trees to 
pieces. They, too, shook themselves cheerfully, 
when I relieved them of their burden. 

I could not do much to help the lesser 
plants ; they were mostly buried beneath the 
snow, and I hoped they were the warmer in 
consequence. The poor wallflowers, that had 
been so sprightly with opening yellow buds when 
we arrived, now showed only shrivelled branches 
above the snow. 

As I broomed my way towards the vegetable 
garden, I noticed that the birds were gathering 
near — they had kept away before, while the dog 
was about. But now the starlings began to 
shriek from the roof of the big barn. " Look at 
her ! Look at her ! What's the use of wasting 
time on rose trees ! No grub's there ! Look at 
her ! Shaking snow down ! Just as though 
there wasn't enough on the ground before ! " 

"Oh, do be quiet !" shouted back a rook. 
" Just look at our nest ! It would have been 
such an up-to-date affair, too ; wife built it on the 
new war-economy lines - clever bird my wife is 

169 M 2 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

— only three sticks, you know ; saves waste ; 
and now look at it ! Wife can't even find the 
sticks ! " 

" Serves her right," cawed a neighbour (a lady, 
I feel sure). "She shouldn't have started so 
early — always trying to get ahead of everyone 
else with her spring cleaning ! " 

The sun had got the better of the clouds, and 
had changed the whole earth from grey to gold, 
from dead white to a gleaming brilliance, yellow 
in the sunlight, blue — undiluted blue — in the 
shade. I had seen blue snow in pictures, and 
had hitherto regarded it as an artistic exaggera- 
tion. But now I saw the blue with my own 
eyes on the north side of the w r alls and barns, 
and where long shadows were cast by the 
Wellingtonia, the hollies, and the evergreen firs. 
The mist still hovered over the valleys, and shut 
us off from the lower lands, but it was no longer 
cold and sombre ; indeed, it was no longer mist 
at all ; it seemed just light enmeshed, a liquid 
golden atmosphere. 

The snow gleamed and scintillated with its 
diamond-dusted surface ; the trunks of the Scots 
firs surprised one with the sudden warmth of red 
they showed when struck by the sunbeams, and 
the lovely colour still left in their blue-green 
foliage. 

Far and wide the birds answered the call of 

170 



Foot- 
prints 

the sun. Big pinions flew across the sky, casting 
shadows on the snow-scape as they passed ; small 
birds darted in and out of holes in tree trunks, or 
crannies under the eaves ; there was a cheeping 
and a chattering all over the garden and the 
orchard ; while up and down the larches flitted 
the tits — the blue-tits swinging upside down, 
almost turning somersaults, as the notion chanced 
to take them ; the coal- tits, any number of them, 
skipping about from branch to branch, never 
still a moment, always talking in their brisk 
little twitter; while over all there rang inces- 
santly the " Pinker, pinker, peter, peter," of the 
great-tit. 

Near at hand, robin, my little garden com- 
panion, was having a good deal to say. At first 
I think he was reiterating what he had often 
said before : that he considered the dog a 
nuisance that ought to be banished from any 
properly conducted garden, since his habit of 
chasing every moving object within sight was 
disturbing, to say the least of it, to a conscien- 
tious worm-hunter. 

Having finished on this subject, he began to 
talk about other things ; but try as I would, I 
could not understand what he said ; yet I knew 
he was trying to tell me something. He kept 
taking short flights over to the wall, and then 
back to some branch near at hand. " Twitter, 
twitter," he kept on saying ; yet he never even 

171 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

noticed the path 1 was clearing, back he would 
fly to the wall. 

At last, as he impatiently fluffed out his 
feathers, perched on a white currant bush, till he 
looked like a ball, saying a lot more the while, I 
made my way through the snow to the wall. 
He darted after me, and stood on top of a mound 
of leaves that had been swept together last 
autumn, and left to stand till the spring digging 
should start. Being on the south side of the 
wall, and sheltered a little by the wide-spreading 
branches of a big Spanish chestnut, it had 
escaped a good deal of the snow, though it was 
frozen hard on the surface. 

Here robin stood, and when he saw I was 
looking at him, he pecked several times with his 
beak at the solid mass. Then he flicked his tail 
and gazed at me. " Surely you understand what 
I want ? " he said with his beady eyes. " No ? 
Oh ! how stupid human beings are ! Well, 
watch me again ! " Dab, dab, dab, went the 
small beak once more, without making the 
slightest impression on the ice-bound lumps. 

Then I grew intelligent. 

" Out of the way," I said to him, and he flew 
to a low branch of the tree and watched me 
critically, while I drove the spade well into the 
mass. 

" That's right," he chirped out excitedly, as I 
turned it over and got down to the softer portion, 

172 



Foot- 
prints 

spreading the leaves about. " Why on earth 
couldn't you have done that sooner ! ?! as he 
swooped down to my very feet and seized some- 
thing wriggly — gulp ! I looked away. 

What ninety-ninth sense is it, I wonder, that 
tells birds when food is about ? One moment 
robin and I had the chestnut tree and its environ- 
ment to ourselves. Next moment, directly I 
turned away, down came thrushes, and black- 
birds, and starlings ; and though robin put his 
foot down firmly, said it was all his, every worm 
of it, and dared anyone else to touch so much as 
a caterpillar- egg, or he'd know the reason why, 
he was outdone by numbers, and finally lost 
what he might have had because he considered 
it his duty to chastise Mr. Over-the-wall-robin, 
who had presumed to say that the leaf-heap 
belonged to him I 

At last I got to the top gate, which is about 
one hundred feet higher than the lower part of 
the garden. What a wonderful world I gazed 
upon, so weird, so immensely mysterious it 
looked under the great snow covering. The 
valleys where the sun did not penetrate were 
entirely blotted out by soft mist. One seemed 
to be alone, high up in space, girdled about by 
white and grey, gold and mauve and steely- 
blue ; I wanted to push on and on, to walk 
miles and miles, to fly if I could. The fact 

i73 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

was, the exhilaration of the keen pure atmo- 
sphere was already beginning to tell on me, and 
was fast mounting to my head. 

One thing I caught sight of on the opposite 
hills gave me pause for thought : it was a larch- 
wood in which every tree was blown so far over 
to one side, that there would be but little chance 
of their ever recovering or getting into the up- 
right. I remembered that the handy man had 
told us trees were lying in all directions out in 
the main road. I decided to climb still higher 
up the hill and see what my own woods looked 
like. First, however, I took off the big coat, 
and left it hanging on the under bough of a 
larch inside the gate. 

Out of the top gate I went, and along the lane 
that now showed a moderately hard path along 
the centre, where one and another had trampled 
it down. A few yards brought me to a field 
that in June is one dazzling, waving mass of 
moon daisies, mauve pyramidal orchises, rich 
purple orchises, quaking grass, and a hundred 
other flowers besides. Not a first class hay-crop, 
I admit ; still, a fair-sized rick stands in one 
corner. And although it may not possess strong 
feeding qualities for cattle, this field has won- 
derful feeding qualities for mind and soul; I've 
lived on it many and many a day through dreary 
London fogs and amid dirty City pavements and 
sordid-looking bricks and mortar. And when 

i/4 



Foot- 
prints 

town has seemed unendurable, with its noise and 
its hustle and its brain-and-body-wearying chase 
after the unnecessary, I've thought of the brook 
that slips out from among a great mass of 
Hard Fern in the birch and hazel coppice up 
above, and wanders across the orchis field, Avith 
ragged robins fluttering their tattered pink petals 
beside the sterner browns and greens of flowering 
reeds, and broad masses of marsh mint — that is 
a mass of bluey-mauve in August — spreading in 
big clumps and bosses wherever it can find a bit 
of damp earth. 

I've shut my eyes in the noisy City train, 
and in a moment I've gathered a big bunch of 
the quaking grass, brown, with a tinge of purple, 
and the yellow stamens dangling from each little 
tuft. And the comfort that the brook and the 
orchises and the reeds and the under carpet of 
tiny flowers have brought me, has been worth 
more to me, personally, than the money that 
twenty haystacks might have realised. 

But to-day the field was just one white sheet, 
like all the rest of the landscape. Along the 
south side of the wall the snow was not so 
heavy, and using the broom as an alpenstock, 
I plodded up the field — giving a wide berth to 
the place where the brook was down below — till 
at last I reached the woods, first a coppice of 
birch and hazel and oak, and adjoining it a 
larch-wood. 

175 



Between the JLarch- 
woods and the Weir 

Once under the trees, the going was " all 
according " ! It depended on whether the snow 
was still on the branches, or had come down in 
small avalanches to the ground beneath. But I 
determined to struggle on. I was warmer than 
I had been since the previous summer, and more 
pleased with life than I had been since before 
the War started. The larch- wood offered the 
easier travelling, since there are not the down- 
drooping, low-lying branches of sundries that are 
always catching at one's hat and hair in the 
mixed woods. With the larches you know just 
what to expect and where to find it. The 
needles make a fairly soft carpet, brambles are 
rare, and all you have to do is to gauge the level 
of the lowest of the bare brown branches, and 
pitch your head accordingly. 

I looked at the wood before I ventured in. 
Everything seemed as usual. The outside trees 
that border the field are mixed firs, pines, and 
Wellingtonia. These do not shed their leaves 
as the larches do, and they stood up strong and 
erect, save where the heaviest laden boughs were 
bending under their weight of snow. 

For the first few yards the trees were normal, 
standing in orderly ranks, much like the aisles of 
an old ruined cathedral, wherein the snow has 
freedom of entry. Every twig, every cone, had 
its glistening decoration. When a gust of wind 
shook tree or branches, down came the snow, in 

176 



Foot- 
prints 

powder for the most part, for the under branches 
broke the masses as they fell, and sent them 
flying in all directions. 

Suddenly I emerged from the sombre half 
light of the wood, into brilliant sunshine, with 
clear space above. Yet— I wasn't through the 
wood; what did it mean? And what were 
these great white masses that blocked all further 
progress? I had never seen this spot before, 
though I know every tree in that wood ; to me 
they are like individual children. 

Then I saw that what lay before me was a 
piled-up mass of trees, torn bodily up by the 
roots and lying in all directions one on top of each 
other. For a moment something almost akin 
to fear seized me, the awesomeness that comes 
over one when in the presence of a force that is 
utterly beyond one's puny power to compass or 
restrain. Here was a footprint, indeed, of the 
storm that had done this stupendous thing. 

The fringe of the wood all round was intact ; 
the blizzard seemingly having swirled down, a 
veritable whirlwind, into the very centre of the 
plantation, tearing the trees out of the ground, 
and flinging them about in uncontrolled fury. 

It was an impressive sight — even with the 
kindly snow covering up the wounds and the 
gashes, and doing its best to obliterate the harsh 
look of devastation that lay over the scene. 

Retracing my steps, I ran into another 



// 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

explorer who was likewise trying to dodge a 
snow-bath round a tree trunk. 

It was Virginia. 

" I'm sorry to interrupt your meditations," 
she said politely, "and I won't detain you a 
moment. I've merely come to ask if you would 
mind lending me your rubbers — not your best 
ones you have on, but the second best with the 
seven holes in the soles and one heel gone — in 
order that I may go to the neighbours and borrow 
a slice of bread. * We ain't like them as asks,' " 
she went on, quoting a favourite expression 
of a well-known whiner in the village, whose 
practice is to take without asking, " ' but it do 
seem hard when you see yer own flesh and blood 
a-crying for vittels.' Not that I would presume 
to interfere with your household arrangements 
and upset your meals, but what with Ursula in 
a dead faint making her will, and Eileen packing 
up to return to her grandmother in order to get 
something to eat " 

" What's the time ? " I cut her short. 

" It was two when last I saw the clock, but 
I've wandered miles since then in seach of you, 
hence the fact that my own rubbers are worn 
out." 

Then I remembered that I had never men- 
tioned the matter of meals to Eileen that 
morning ; though, in any case, there wasn't much 
that could be cooked till that sheep was killed. 

i73 



Foot- 
prints 

come Friday : we had naught but the remains of 
a shoulder of mutton. 

" How did you find where I was ? ' I en- 
quired, as we ploughed our way back. 

" Footprints, oh, blessed word ! " she said. 
" In any case, you shed your garments wherever 
you went, and thoughtfully left your coat hang- 
ing in the larch avenue ; Eileen saw it in the 
distance and came shrieking to us that the 
burglar had evidently hung himself from a tree 
by the top gate ! " 

As there proved to be nothing at all on the 
mutton bone, we decided to reckon it a meatless 
day, and we sat down to a lunch of bread and 
cheese and coffee — each rending a cookery book 
the while. The Food Authorities surely couldn't 
object to that I — and you've no idea what a 
fillip it gives to a war-meal, if you've never 
tried it. 

Collecting cookery books, ancient and modern, 
being one of my hobbies, there was a fine assort- 
ment to choose from. I selected " Ten Minutes 
with my Chafing Dish," and what that author 
did in the time you would never credit ! My 
bread and cheese became, in turn, braised terra- 
pin, crayfish omelette, creamed oysters with 
Spanish onions, escalloped chicken with mush- 
rooms, and fricaseed trout with paprika sauce. 

I had it all at the one meal, no questions 
asked about the number of courses and the 

179 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

ounces of flour, and it only cost me about six- 
pence including the coffee. 

Ursula, who had annexed a 1724 volume, ate 
her frugalities to the accompaniment of Double 
Rum Shrub ; but, as I told her, I was thankful 
I had been better brought up. 

Virginia chose " The Scientific Adjustment 
of Food Values " ; and, before she had got 
through the first chapter, started to blame me 
for giving them cheese and butter, when I might 
know that both contained a sweeping majority 
of proteids. Whereas, what she found she really 
needed was cheese and water-melon (though 
cantaloupe might take its place), and why wasn't 
there water-melon (or cantaloupe) on the table ? 
She had known all her life long that she needed 
it — always had an undefinable longing steal o'er 
her about twelve o'clock midday and again at 
four-thirty — but her want had never been made 
articulate before, simply because she wasn't sure 
of the name of the missing link. Now, how- 
ever, if I expected to retain my hold on their 
affections, she must really ask me to see that 
water-melon 

But I was too deep in the enjoyment of a 
dish of anchovy and caviare canapes at the 
moment to interfere. I left her at it. 

In the afternoon, as we were short of milk, 
I suggested that we should go ourselves to the 

1 80 



Foot- 
prints 

Jones's farm in search of more. There was a 
beaten track along the lanes now, so we took 
the tin milk- can and started off uphill, thereby 
just missing the Head of Affairs, who came 
swinging up the road from the village. Having 
seen the finally departing back of the very last 
workman, he had caught the next train and 
arrived unannounced. 

The wind was keen when he got up out of 
the valley, so he turned up his coat collar and 
rammed his cap well on his head. Finding the 
cottage door locked, he knocked briskly and 
started to inquire for me, when Eileen (whom 
he had never seen before, remember) opened 
the door in response to his knock. But, to his 
amazement, before he got a couple of words out, 
the door was banged to, in his face, and he was 
informed through the large keyhole — 

" The lady is not — I mean — she is at home, 
but she is engaged; she is — er — she is enter- 
taining friends and can't see anyone." 

Exceedingly bewildered, the caller waited a 
minute, trying in vain to catch sounds of hilarity 
within, and then rapped again ; and, as the key- 
hole seemed the correct channel of communica- 
tion, he said through the aperture — 

" Kindly tell your mistress that her husband 
is here." 
. There was a pause, then the voice within 

said — 

181 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

" The lady is sorry she can't see anyone to- 
day, as she is ill in bed." 

The mystery thickened. Going round to 
the back door, which was also locked, the caller 
rapped more vigorously still. This time an 
agitated voice wailed from the inside — 

" Are you still there ? Oh, please go away ! " 

But, though he was exceedingly astonished 
at this curious reception, he had no intention of 
going, and he said so. Eileen's next question 
was unexpected. 

" What is your Christian name ? " she began. 
He told her. "What is the colour of your 
hair ? " 

He proceeded to describe himself, and 
added — 

"If you have any doubt about me, let the 
dog out, he'll soon tell you if I'm a genuine case 
or an impostor." 

The dog was whining inside, and trying fran- 
tically to get out. The girl debated, and then 
said — 

"All right; but you won't mind waiting a 
minute ? " 

" Oh, not at all ! " he replied, with sweet 
sarcasm. " I don't mind in the least how long 
I stand here in the cold. I quite enjoy it." 

Then suddenly the door was flung open, and 
Eileen, holding a photo of the Head of Affairs 
in her hand, which she had fetched down from 

182 



Foot- 
prints 

my bedroom, started to compare it carefully 
with the original. 

" Yes," she sighed ; " you are something 
like it." 

But the visitor had walked in unceremo- 
niously, with the joyful dog leaping around. 

" Now," he said severely, as he took off his 
coat. " Where is your mistress ? " 

Eileen looked mournful. " If you please, 
sir, I'm very sorry, but I told you a wicked 
story just now. The mistress isn't entertaining 
friends" — that was self-evident, as the cottage 
living-rooms were empty, and it was hardly the 
kind of day one would choose to entertain 
friends in the garden — " and she isn't ill in bed 
neither. She isn't here at all. But I didn't like 
to say so at first. I was afraid, not knowing 
who you were, and coming after the shock. 
Have you heard the awful news ? " 

" No ! " exclaimed the harassed, hungry man, 
jumping to his feet again in alarm. " What's 
happened ? " 

" Haven't you heard ? " and Eileen lowered 
her voice to an hysterical whisper. " We've 
discovered footprints I " 

By this time the Head of Affairs was quite 
convinced in his mind that either the girl was 
not in the full possession of her senses, or else she 
had been to see a Robinson Crusoe pantomime, 
and it had turned her brain, so he merely said — 

183 N 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

"Well, perhaps you'll now try if you can 
discover some coffee, and that as quickly as 
possible." And he dismissed her when he had 
ascertained where we had gone, as he was rather 
weary of the whole performance. 

Meanwhile my guests and I were making a 
few neighbourly calls in passing. In a scattered 
community that is often cut off by the weather 
from intercourse with its fellow-kind, a little 
gossip is always welcome. Not idle gossip, I 
would have you understand ; but talk on things 
of serious import. For instance, I was naturally 
very glad to learn from one of my neighbours 
that old Mrs. Blossom had not been secretly 
harbouring a German spy after all, as it turned 
out that the masculine under- vests that had been 
hung out each week lately with the wash really 
belonged to her late husband ; and after cherish- 
ing them for five years, she had decided it was 
more patriotic to wear them herself at a time 
like this, than to buy herself new ones when 
wool was so badly needed for the troops. 

It was a real satisfaction to get this mystery 
cleared up at last, as her clothes-line each 
Monday morning (when the weather was fine) 
had worried us greatly. When I say (( us' : I 
don't mean myself necessarily, because I fear I 
hadn't kept track of her washing as I ought to 
have done if I called myself a friend and neigh- 

184 



Foot- 
prints 

bour. Most remiss of me, of course. Still, 
there it was ; and I had no need now to creep 
along beside the hedge and take an inventory of 
her garments ; neither need I fear for the safety 
of our hill. 

Fortunately, with us time is of no im- 
portance, the clock really doesn't signify, even 
if it goes, which isn't guaranteed ; we divide 
the day into three meals, which are regulated 
by the three trains that puff up the valley, 
week-days only. Sunday is more of a prob- 
lem, if you have children to be got off to 
Sunday-school ; but as Mrs. Jasper has the one 
reliable clock up in our corner of the hills, her 
children set the pace ; and when Maudie Jasper's 
starched China silk Sunday frock is seen to be 
coming along the lane, accompanied by other 
little Jaspers in Lord Fauntleroy blue velvet 
suits and a bunch of everlasting pea, blush roses 
and southernwood for teacher, then the two or 
three other cottages in the vicinity hurry up and 
add their quota to the little procession that 
walks decorously (so long as it is in sight of 
maternal eyes) down the hillside trail to the 
Sunday-school in the valley. 

Of course awkward mistakes sometimes 
happen, as they do in the best of well-regulated 
families. It was so on the occasion of the first 
introduction of Daylight Saving. Naturally the 
weekly newspaper and the vicar and the school- 

185 N 2 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

master, and everybody, had explained to every- 
body else that on a certain Saturday night the 
clock must be put forward one hour, etc. We 
are anything but behind the times on our hills, 
and no clocks in the whole of the British Isles 
were set forward an hour more eagerly than ours 
were; only, obviously, if you haven't a clock 
that goes, you can't set it forward ; therefore 
our little corner looked feverishly in the direc- 
tion of the Jasper clock, and frequently reminded 
the Jaspers of their national duty. 

To make quite sure that the important rite 
wasn't overlooked, Mrs. Jasper put the hands of 
the clock on an hour when first she got up on the 
Saturday morning, instead of last thing at night, 
as the authorities had decreed. An hour more 
or less made no difference to the family, seeing 
that it was Saturday and no school to be thought 
of. Meals came as a matter of course, and quite 
irrespective of clocks. Mrs. Jasper knew that if 
she didn't see to the thing no one else would. 
So she got it off her mind nice and early. 

Later in the day Mr. Jasper thought of the 
new official regulations re Daylight Saving ; and 
knowing the uselessness of ever hoping to get a 
brain that was merely feminine to grasp any 
great truth as set forth in newspapers, he him- 
self put the clock on an hour ; as master of the 
house he regarded it as his peculiar office to see 
that the law was duly enforced. He didn't 

1 86 



Toot' 
prints 

mention the matter to his wife ; what would be 
the good ? And it wasn't her concern anyhow ; 
but as he shut the door of the clock, he won- 
dered where indeed the household would be if 
it were not for him and his thoughtful habits I 

Then there was Maudie Jasper. Being a 
bright child of twelve, brought up on modern 
educational lines, naturally she had no very high 
opinion of her parents' intellects. Since it was 
she who illumined the home with the torch of 
learning, she felt it devolved on her to see 
that the clock kept abreast of current events. 
Besides, she was a shining example in the mattea 
of Sunday-school tickets ; she didn't intend to 
be late next morning. So she, too, put on the 
hands an hour. 

It was just as Mrs. Jasper was going upstairs 
to bed at night, tired out with the Saturday night 
bathing of the children, that the clock stared 
her in the face, and the question arose : Had 
she, or had she not, put on that clock an hour 
as she had meant to ? Her memory isn't good 
at the best of times, and she was especially done 
up with a day that somehow had not seemed 
nearly long enough for its accustomed duties, 
though she couldn't make out why. But to 
make quite sure, she gave the hands a flick 
round ; better be quite certain than have Maudie 
late for Sunday-school. Only she did wish they 
didn't leave everything for her to do ! 

1 8; 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

Next morning, when the Vicar drew up his 
blind at 7 a.m., as is his unfailing wont, he saw a 
small group of children standing forlornly out- 
side the Sunday-school door, waiting for the 
10 o'clock opening ! 

Mrs. Jasper's was the next cottage we called 
at, to inquire after her husband, who was now at 
the front. Mrs. Jasper was delighted to see us, 
and of course asked if we had further news of 
the burglar, the fame of our footprints having 
spread far and wide. She told us all about the 
neuralgia in her head, and seemed much re- 
lieved when we assured her that it was not at 
all likely to turn to appendicitis. 

She had had a lurking fear that if it became 
appendicitis, she would have to go to a hospital, 
and she hadn't much belief in hospitals. There 
was her sister's little boy Tommy, up in London, 
just four years old, and all nerves, as you may 
say ; screamed and kicked like anything if you 
didn't give him what he wanted the moment he 
asked for it. They couldn't do nothing with 
him. 

At last they decided to take him to a hos- 
pital ; so her sister-in-law and " his " mother 
went with her. And what do you think the 
doctor said, after they'd told him the symptoms ? 
"Temper," he says; "just bad temper. Take 
him home, and spank him next time it comes 

188 



Foot- 
prints 

on." And that was all they got 1 — cost them 
fivepence each for car-fares too ! 

We asked after her own family. Maudie 
was getting on splendidly at school, "really a 
first-class scholard she is, although it's I that say 
it. Can read the Bible beautifully now — or at 
any rate the Testament " (with a desire to be 
absolutely truthful). " And when I'm writing 
to her father, and can't quite reelect how to 
spell a word, she can tell me two or three 
different ways of spelling it, right off pat ! " 

At the next cottage we stopped to inquire 
after a man who had met with an accident, 
which necessitated the amputation of one leg 
below the knee. Having given him all our own 
" Surgical Aid " letters, and fleeced our friends of 
theirs, I naturally asked why he wasn't wearing 
the artificial limb that had been procured ? (it 
was reposing artistically on the top of the chest 
of drawers in the kitchen, a stuffed sea-gull under 
a glass shade on one side, balanced by a wedding- 
cake-top-ornament under glass on the other). 
Wasn't it comfortable ? I asked. Didn't it fit ? 

" Oh, yes'm, thank you ; it fits beautiful. 
But that's my best leg ; and the missus likes me 
to keep it there w T here she can show it to every- 
one, and I only uses it for Sundays and Bank 
'Ollerdis." 

Then we looked in on Mrs. Granger, a happy- 
go-lucky widow who is always passing round the 

r89 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

hat. When we knocked at the kitchen door, 
she was pouring down the sink the liquor in 
which she had just boiled a piece of bacon. I 
couldn't help asking mildly and deferentially : 
" Have you ever tried using the liquor of boiled 
bacon for making pea-soup ? It's very nourish- 
ing, as well as tasty." 

Mrs. Granger smiled at me indulgently. 
"Well, ma'am, seeing that I've buried two 
husbands and three children, no one, I fancy, can 
give me points about feeding a family ! " 

At Mrs. Jones's we made a longer call ; we 
simply had to, as we were wanting milk, and she 
made no move to get it, but merely stood talking. 
There was the mirror over the parlour mantel- 
piece, she particularly wanted us to see that. 
Arundel Jones (aged eleven) had smashed a hole 
right through the glass when practising bomb- 
throwing in there. But would you ever know it, 
the way Patricia (aged seventeen) had decorated 
it ? And as we couldn't think what to say, we 
looked long and earnestly at the bunch of arti- 
ficial and rather faded roses from Patricia's hat 
that had been stuck in the hole, with some green 
paint daubed around on the glass to represent 
leaves. Fortunately, Mrs. Jones didn't wait for 
our opinion — took it for granted, indeed, since 
there could only be one opinion about such 
a masterpiece — and proceeded to ask what I 
thought could be done with so artistic a girl. 

190 



Toot- 
prints 

And that reminded her, could I tell her 
where she could write to in London for some 
Loop Canvas at a penny a yard ? Patricia 
wanted to make some slippers for a young man 
friend of hers who was at the front, and sweetly 
pretty too, with forget-me-nots all over ; but it 
said you must have penny Loop Canvas. She 
had asked for it in Chepstow, but they had never 
heard of it, the cheapest they had was Is. 4§c?., 
and no loops in it at that. But, of course, you 
could get everything in London. 

I had never heard of the canvas myself (and 
I thought I knew most that was going !), but in 
any case, she wouldn't get any canvas at Id. a 
yard now, I told her ; she had evidently got hold 
of some very old directions. 

No, she hadn't ; it was in last week's Home 
Snippets, and she got the periodical out from 
among an assortment of similar data under the 
horse-hair sofa squab, to show me. 

There, under the heading — 

"A Dainty Cosy-Comfort for your Boy 
in the Trenches," 

it described how to make a pair of wool-work 
slippers, commencing with " Get a yard of 
Penelope canvas." 

Then Mrs. Jones was uneasy about her step- 
daughter, Kathleen, who was in service near 
Chepstow. " The food's all right ; but the lady 

191 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

isn't what I call a good wife — never thinks of 
brushing her husband's best clothes and putting 
them away for him of a Monday morning, and 
yet I've never once missed doing that since I 
married Jones. And I assure you, when I 
married him, he hadn't a darned sock to his 
back. I'm sorry Kathleen hasn't a better ex- 
ample before her, for she's inclined to be flighty. 
She's got a week's holiday next month, and 
nothing will do but she must go and visit her 
cousin, who is working at munitions in Cardiff. 
I say to her, ' Cardiff's a nasty noisy place ; why 
don't you go and visit your Aunt Lizzie at 
Penglyn, she's so worried she can hardly hold 
her head up some days, and cries from morning 
till night ; and would be thankful to have some- 
one to talk things over with ; or your father's 
Cousin Ann at Caerleon, they've had a sight of 
trouble there, and never see a soul nor go out 
of the house from week end to week end ; they'd 
love to have you.' But no, it's Cardiff she 
wants," and Mrs. Jones sighed at the unaccount- 
able taste of one-and-twenty ! 

" Ah, no one knows what an anxiety that girl's 
been to me," went on the buxom, good-natured 
woman, who in reality never makes a trouble of 
anything, and has been a real mother to Kath- 
leen. " I sometimes wonder why I married her 
father ! But there, I wilj say it looks better on 
your tombstone to have ' The beloved wife of,' 

192 



Foot- 
prints 

rather than plain Martha Miggins (as I was), all 
unbelongst to no one, as it were." 

Don't imagine for a moment that this implied 
matrimonial divergence on the part of Mr. and 
Mrs. Jones, for a more contented couple you 
couldn't find in the village. It is merely the 
polite way we have, locally, of discounting our 
blessings, lest we should seem to be flaunting 
our happiness in the face of less fortunate people. 

" By the way," she said, as we were going out 
of the door, " have you heard who it was walked 
around your place the other night ? Well, now, 
to think I should have forgotten to mention it, 
but it was no one, after all, but the policeman ! 
My husband was over to the police-station this 
morning about that mare we've lost, and he men- 
tioned it ; and, sure enough, the policeman had got 
it down in his book that he crossed the hill by our 
road that night, and had looked over your house." 

And then 1 remembered that there was 
a police-station in the next village, that did 
duty for a very wide area of miles. And it was 
usual for the policeman to patrol from one village 
to another, by various routes, last thing at night, 
ascertaining if the inhabitants' doors en route 
were all duly locked. We were much relieved 
in our minds, and started for home discussing 
the situation, when Virginia suddenly said — 

" Surely that is our dog barking further along 
the lane \ 

*93 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

We paused to listen. 

" Yes, it is," I said in surprise. " Whatever 
can he be doing out here ? " and we hurried on ; 
for the dog is a valuable one, and is never let out 
without an escort. A turn in the lane brought us 
face to face with a tall, familiar masculine figure. 

" Why, wherever have you come from ? " I 
exclaimed. 

"I've just made my escape from the tame 
lunatic who seems to be in charge of the cottage," 
said the Head of Affairs cheerfully, as he relieved 
Ursula of the quart of milk. "And I would 
suggest, my dear, that the next time you pro- 
pose to turn your house into a sanatorium for 
6 Mentally Deficients,' you might give your 
family due notice. A shock like that isn't good 
for one after climbing such a hill." 

And he might not have been particularly 
mollified when, later in the evening, Eileen 
offered the following apology : — 

" I'm very sorry, sir, that I kept you waiting 
outside all that time in the cold ; only how was 
I to know you were a gentleman, sir, when you 
looked so exactly like a burglar ? " 

But, fortunately, in the interval he had dis- 
covered, in his dressing-room, a new-but-forgotten 
pair of boots, and a not-at-all-bad-considering- 
it's-war-time overcoat ; and, naturally, he was 
inclined to take a roseate view of life. 

104 



XI 

Exit Eileen 

It was six months later, and about as broiling 
a Sunday afternoon as London can produce. 
Virginia and I were reading in the coolest spot 
in the garden, when Abigail came out and 
announced, with slight acidity, "That young 
person wants to know if she can see you, madam. 
I told her you were engaged, but she said she 
would wait." 

" What is her name ? " I queried ; there are 
so many young persons in the world. 

" That Eileen ! " she answered, this time 
with a definite sniff. 

" She can come out here," I said, and forth- 
with there sailed across the lawn a vision such as 
never before had graced my garden. 

Eileen was wearing a white Jap silk skirt ; a 
transparent rose pink blouse, that revealed the 
satin ribbon and lace camisole beneath ; pink 
cotton open-work stockings ; white shoes ; one 
of those long stoles made of metallic-looking, 
lustre-brown fur, so beloved of the laundry girl ; 
a big white hat, trimmed with the most violent 
of tangerine-coloured velvet, said velvet hanging 
in festoons down the back, and loops of it caught 
round the front and fastened to the fur stole — 

i95 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

on one side with a large would-be-diamond lizard, 
about four inches long, and on the other with 
a crescent of similar make. Her hair, which 
was done in a wild imitation of the latest eccen- 
tricity of fashion, was radiant with more crescents 
and a sparkling three-tiered back comb. A 
string of large pearls adorned her neck. 

To say I was taken aback at the sight, is to 
put it mildly ; I was fairly dumb with astonish- 
ment. Where in the world had that demure, 
mouse-like orphan been to pick up such ideas ! 
Even though I knew she had gone to work in a 
munition factoiy, I wasn't prepared for such 
developments. She soon enlightened us. 

After mutual polite inquiries about each 
other's health, and a few more relative to the 
grandmother, she folded her hands in her lap, 
sat as though posing for a photograph, and then 
said : " And please, how do you think I look ? " 

" You are certainly very bright," I stammered, 
striving valiantly after truth. 

" Yes, I look very nice, don't I ? " she went 
on ; " and I felt I ought to come round and 
show you, because, as I tell everybody, it's all 
entirely due to you, ma'am, that I'm so stylish. 
I shouldn't never have thought to dress like this, 
if you hadn't taught me how. And now I'm 
going round to show myself to Mrs. Griggles." 



196 



XII 

The Old Wood-House 

The old wood-house stands on the lee-side of a 
belt of trees, part of the Squirrels' Highway, as 
we call it, that runs down one side of the Flower- 
patch, sheltering it from the bleak north winds. 

Picture to yourself a building rather smaller 
than a very small church, built of great blocks of 
grey stone, with walls nearly two feet thick in 
places, a red-tiled pointed roof, a door at one 
end ; and in case the walls should prove too 
flimsy to stand the winter gales, huge stone 
buttresses prop it up on the "off" side (i.e. the 
side where the ground goes on running down- 
hill), lest the structure should take it into its 
head to run down-hill too ! 

In place of a spire, above the door, a weather- 
cock swings its arrow to the winds — at least, it 
would swing it on any well-conducted apex, but 
being merely mine it permanently points south. 
Not that it is particular where it points ; all it 
asks is to be left in peace to close its eyes in 
meditative contemplation of the landscape. We 
occasionally get a ladder and then a long stick, 
and move it round, trying to urge it to deeds of 
derring-do, but it falls asleep the moment our 
ministrations cease. 

197 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

The last time, it was a neighbouring farmer 
who climbed the ladder to reason with it, after I 
had assured him there was no penalty under 
the Defence of the Realm Act for regulating 
weathercocks. He was a bit reluctant to touch 
it at first ; as he said, what with clocks not being 
allowed to tick as they pleased, and the time 
being jiggered with anyhow, you didn't know 
where you was with nothing. But once I had 
taken full responsibility for the affair, he went 
up with right goodwill, and — forgetting that it 
was the arrow alone that needed to move — he 
gave a sturdy tug to the north, south, east, and 
west arrangement, and sent the arms of that in 
all directions. 

Then when we wanted to fix it up again, the 
question arose, which was the north ? A local 
light supposed to know everything, who chanced 
to be passing, was summoned for consultation. 
After carefully surveying the various corners oi 
heaven, as though looking for enemy air-craft, he 
said he didn't know as he could say ezackly 
which wur the north, unless he had summat to 
tell him (we all felt like that, too !) ; but if we 
would a-float a needle on the top of a basin of 
water, then either the point of the needle — or — 
le's see ? maybe 'twas the heye, he wasn't quite 
certain which — would point to the north, for 
sure. 

Well, all hands rushed for basins and needles, 

198 



The Old 

Wood-House 

as you may suppose ; because, whether it was 
the point or the eye didn't matter much, since 
we knew the direction in which the north lay ; 
all we wanted was the precise angle. But alas, 
every needle promptly sank to the bottom of the 
basin, without so much as a kick ! 

Eventually we refixed the north pole approxi- 
mately, pending such time as the Head of Affairs 
should arrive, when I knew we could rely on the 
small compass at the end of his watch chain. 
But Virginia, who uses the weathercock more 
than most of us, as she sees it from her bedroom 
window, and says it is so useful to dress by, was 
lugubriously certain his watch would be stolen 
on the next journey down, and begged me to 
place the arrow — still asleep — pointing south ; 
even an approximate south, she said, might at 
least help to keep her spirits up, when a north- 
easter was blowing. 

And south it remaineth unto this day, despite 
all our blandishments, and probably will do so 
till the end of the War, when the retirement of 
the Food Controller — who, presumably, super- 
vises weathercocks — may permit of our using a 
modicum of grease. 

The old wood-house (which, by the way, was 
originally used for coals, though no trace of this 
is left upon its clean, lime- washed interior) is the 
first building you run across as you enter by the 

199 o 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

top gate, which is the widest entrance we 
possess. Here you step from the lane right into 
a tiny larch plantation, and the path to the 
cottage is arched over with the boughs of the 
trees, while the brown cones crunch under your 
boots, or roll away down the steep incline of the 
path when your foot touches them. It was 
among these trees that a small clearing was 
made in the distant past to accommodate this 
particular out-building ; though why the coal- 
house was considered the most artistic bit of 
bric-a-brac to greet you as you enter the main 
gate is not clear. 

The actual outline of the building is not 
remarkable, being merely four walls and a 
pointed roof, with a door and a window ; but at 
least it looks simple, dignified, and solid, and 
what it lacks in architectural decoration has been 
supplied by Nature herself. When we first saw 
it, we called it the private chapel ; but later on 
I found Abigail & Co. calling it the picture 
palace. 

At any rate, there it stands, shadowed by 
great oaks seemingly immovable, with their 
gnarled wide-stretching arms spread as in bless- 
ing over the lowlier woodland things ; a big 
Spanish chestnut, though tardy in coming into 
leaf, scatters worthless burrs around later on, 
with generous goodwill ; a walnut-tree invites 
the passer-by to rub its aromati leaves, and is 

200 



The Old 

Wood-House 

there any treasure-trove quite like the walnuts 
that one finds in the long wet grass on a windy 
autumn morning ? Larches and firs make shady 
colonnades, with their straight uprising shafts, 
and dark drooping branches ; silver birches, 
always graceful, no matter how they may have 
had to twist their trunks to accommodate them- 
selves to their environment, give lightness and 
vivacity to the whole. 

Incense there is in abundance. The warm 
resinous odour of the larches is always abroad ; 
mountain-ash-trees load the air with scent in 
the late spring, and are ablaze with crimson in 
August. Two or three lichen-covered, twisted 
old apple-trees hang out bunches of pale-green 
mistletoe, for all to see during the winter months, 
and then surprise one with a bride-like flush of 
white and pink in the spring. Where the sun is 
brightest, a big hawthorn carpets the ground 
with white petals in May. 

Then there are the lovely limes — and the 
lime-tree is much more of a stately lady than is 
realized by those who only know the sad, 
maimed and distorted stumps that disfigure 
suburban gardens in London. But see this lime- 
tree that forms a link in the Squirrels' Highway ! 
Its trunk measures about ten feet round. Under 
the shadow of its drooping far-sweeping branches 
you could give a small Sunday-school treat. 
Though the lowest branches spring from the 

201 o 2 



Between the Larch- * 
woods and the Weir 

trunk at least nine feet from the ground, their 
far ends touch the grass, forming a complete 
tent of translucent green and gold as you look 
upwards, through a multitude of layers of leaves, 
to a sun you cannot see, but which seems to 
have turned the whole tree into a rippling mass 
of molten colour. And when it shakes out its 
bunches of scented yellow blossoms, and trails 
them by the thousand down each branch and 
stem, then indeed the lime-tree is a lovely lady, 
and the bees and the butterflies come from far 
and near to pay her homage. 

And each tree has a special and distinct 
winter-beauty of its own in the outline of 
branches and stems and twigs — a beauty that is 
lost to us once the leaves appear, but which 
suggests an exquisite etching in winter when 
the dark lines are silhouetted against the sky. 
The most graceful is the birch, with its light 
tracery of fine filaments, often with tassel-like 
catkins dangling at the end. The oak and beech 
give the impression of enormous strength in the 
ease with which they fling outright their massive 
arms with seldom any tendency to droop. 

And each tree has its special and distinct 
melody when the wind signals the forest 
orchestra ; there is the sea-surge of the beeches, 
the swish of the heavily plumed firs, the rain- 
sound of the twinkling aspen, the soft whisper 
of the birches, the seolian hum of the pines, and 

202 



The Old 

Wood-House 

the sibilant rustle of the dead leaves still clinging 
to the winter oak. 

Outside the wood-house door there is a little 
clearing adjoining the grove of trees, where a 
perfect thicket of wild flowers smiles at you for 
the greater part of the year. First come the 
early violets clustering about the roots of the 
trees, and in the shelter of the grey rock frag- 
ments ; while primroses dot the grass with their 
crinkly leaves, and then send up pink stems 
covered with silver sheen, and delicately scented 
flowers each as big as a penny. Oxlips grow on 
the bank that borders one side of the clearing. 

Later, it is an expanse of moon-daisies — 
thousands of them swaying the whole day long 
to the motion of the wind like the ever-restless 
surface of the sea. And with the moon-daisies 
are buttercups, crimson clover, rosy-purple knap- 
weed, spikes of pink orchis delicately pencilled 
with mauve — all trying to grow to the height of 
the big yellow- eyed daisies ; while here and 
there ruddy spears of sorrel out-top them all. 

Tall grasses of every kind are here, some like 
a fine translucent veil of purple, others grey, or a 
pinky-green ; some shaking out yellow or helio- 
trope stamens ; some ever trembling like the 
quaking-grass — but all mingling with the tall 
flowers, softening the surface of the mass of 
white blossoms that seem in the sunshine 

203 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

almost too dazzling to look upon, were it not 
for the mist of the grasses that envelops 
them. 

Underneath the tall flowers there is a 
wonderful carpet of lesser-growing things — 
masses of trefoil, the yellow blossoms often 
touched with fiery orange ; patches of heath bed- 
straw, with its myriads of tiny gleaming white 
flowers, cling to any spot where the grasses leave 
it room to breathe, its first cousin, the woodruff, 
preferring a shadier part of the bank at the side 
— the bank where the wild strawberries grow to 
a luscious size, and whortleberry bushes add a 
touch of wildness to the spot. 

The smaller clovers, both yellow and white, 
seem to thrive under the bigger flowers, where 
most else would suffocate. Pink-tipped daisies 
bloom wherever they can find room to hold up a 
little face. Rosy-pink vetches wander about at 
pleasure, and pretend they are going to do great 
things when they start to climb the stems of the 
moon-daisies. 

Where the big fir trees throw a shadow, and 
the sun only touches the grass when it is getting 
round to the west, foxgloves send up shafts of 
colour and the pale-blue spiked veronica carpets 
the ground. 

Still further back, where the sunshine never 
penetrates, even here something strives to give 
beauty to barrenness and soften austerity, for the 

204 



The Old 
Wood-House 

small-leaved ivy starts to climb the hard tree 
trunks, undoubtedly one of the most beautiful of 
the many living things that are neighbour to the 
old wood-house. 

And always in the grass there lie the snapped- 
off twigs and branches of the larches, with their 
brown picots up stems that are studded with 
exquisite cones. We strive hard to better 
Nature, to make new designs, to evolve fresh 
beauty ; but with all our skill and experiments 
we have yet to improve on the cone as a design, 
with its rhythmic re-iteration of the one small 
motif and the perfection of its proportions. In 
my mind it ranks with the smoked-silver seed 
ball of the dandelion, both of them examples of 
absolute beauty derived from the simplest of 
outlines. 

The walls of the wood-house have their share 
of green ; on the north side an ivy, with a 
gnarled main stem the size of a fair sized tree 
trunk, sends evergreen branches over roof as 
well as walls. Outside the door, which opens 
to the south, stone-crop has planted itself in 
masses among the stones, a perfect carpet of it, 
that in June is a bright yellow. In the " good 
old times," before my day, the stone-crop served 
as a convenient spot on which to dump the coal 
sacks ! 

On the western side where the ground drops 

205 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

down — a warm, snug and sheltered bank — in the 
long grass white violets bloom by the thousand 
in the early spring, their sweet little blossoms 
streaked with mauve, nestling up to the old grey 
walls with the trustfulness of little children. 
Add to this long-fronded ferns growing out from 
among the wall stones, and you have an idea of 
the geography of the place. 

On a hot day the cool shade on the north 
side is an ideal resting place ; on a chilly day the 
south side gives you a shield from the wind. 
A pile of tree trunks and old logs lying outside 
fairly ask you to sit for a moment and take in 
some of the loveliness of the scene — you can 
never exhaust the whole of it — and if you sit for 
a minute you will probably sit there for hours. 

Here is absolute quiet of spirit, but never 
silence. The trees are seldom still ; all day and 
all night the wind upon these hills sways the tall, 
lithe tops of the larches to and fro, to and fro ; 
the leaves and the catkins of the birches are for 
ever fluttering ; the vibrant branches of the pines 
hum and sing in the breezes, summer or winter ; 
the music of it all never ceases though it varies 
in volume according to the season. On the 
hottest summer days the grasses still sigh ; the 
bees hum all day long in the clover ; the blue- 
tits tweet and twitter as they swing about the 
birches, and their cousins the coal-tits keep up 
an endless run of comment in the larches. In 

206 



The Old 

Wood-House 

May the nightingale comes into the grove to 
sing ; in June rival chaffinches perch on the top 
spikes of certain spruce trees — always the same 
bird on the same spike — and defy each other and 
the world in general. The stock-dove croons 
over its nest in the tallest firs, and the reddy- 
brown squirrel scolds you severely if you are 
coming too near his own particular chosen tree. 

Inside the wood-house you may find many 
things ; some you are prepared for, some you 
are not. In theory, it is sacred to the use of 
the Head of Affairs, a sort of play-house and 
workshop combined, wherein no handy man is 
supposed to set foot, and no prying eyes are 
supposed to discover that the owner is working 
in a jersey, with no qualms over the absence of 
waistcoat and stiff collar. 

But I often go in when I am anxious to be 
alone and wanting many things that one cannot 
put down in words. And knowing this, the 
Head of Affairs doesn't keep his best saws 
there ! — not the splendid big " Farmer's Saw," 
with its doubly notched teeth, that run through 
big fir trunks with amazing ease ; nor the finer 
tools that deal with the short snappy branches. 
No, the saw that is left for such emergencies is 
a nondescript article that has now a wavy — very 
wavy — edge, and a few of its teeth doubled over ; 
a saw that seems as though you can never get it 

207 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

well into the wood, and once you have got it in, 
it can't be got out again, much less be made to 
move with soft purring motion. 

You see, I have individuality where sawing 
is concerned, but it is useless to talk about it, for 
I've come to the conclusion that whatever other 
moral improvements a woman may manage to 
effect in the man she marries, it is a lifework to 
get him to a proper appreciation of her method 
of goffering a saw ! 

But I must beg you not to picture the wood- 
house as the home of the miscellaneous collection 
of nondescript oddments so indescribably dear to 
every masculine heart. There is an outhouse 
elsewhere that accommodates short lengths of 
chain, pieces of wire netting, old locks, bits of 
copper wire, staples and hooks, broken hinges 
(that might be made do duty again, if any one 
ever has a gate that prefers its hinges to be 
broken), oil cans, a piece of lead pipe, various 
lengths of iron rods, broom handles, stale putty, 
old keys, a couple of invalided padlocks, and — 
well, you know the type of things that every 
self-respecting man likes to gather around him, 
and keep handy, in case he might need them at 
any moment. 

Unfortunately one of the many blighting 
influences of town-life, for ever hindering the 
full flowering of one's better nature, is the lack 
of the necessary space to stock such useful items. 

208 



The Old 

Wood-House 

But in the country one is not so hampered, and 
one's private marine store grows apace, and 
differs only according to the temperament of the 
collector. Indeed, I have come to the con- 
clusion that country air develops in man and 
woman alike that tendency to hoard, which is so 
noticeable in early childhood, when the small 
girl collects buttons and clippings from her 
mother's sewing-room, and the small boy bulges 
the blouse of his sailor suit with string and 
" conquers " and coloured chalks, and old pen- 
knives and young frogs. 

In town a woman's only outlet, as a rule, is 
the bargain counter or annual sale or remnant 
day. These dissipations are denied us in the 
country, but we make up for it in many other 
directions. My own particular weakness is jam- 
jars, and the way I pounce on any round pot, be 
it glass or earthenware, that looks as though it 
might be made to hold jelly or jam, is quite a 
study in efficiency. And, like all expert col- 
lectors, my collection has sub-divisions, or perhaps 
you would call them ramifications ; cups that 
have lost their handles, jugs ditto, glasses that 
once held a rolled tongue, or fish paste, are all 
included ; and friends, as they bring round a 
portmanteau full of empty jars at Christmas or 
on my birthday, say, " It is so nice in your case 
that one knows what you actually want ; so 
much better to give anyone what they really 

209 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

like, and will use, rather than some useless bit of 
jewellery." And I quite agree. 

There was one moment when I feared my 
jars would have to go in the general rending 
asunder of domestic life caused by the War, 
even though I had determined to stick to them 
as long as I could. But when that " one clear 
call " came for jam-pots, naturally I couldn't be 
a traitor to my country, and I decided the jars at 
least must go, even though I might perhaps 
retain the handleless cups and jugs. So I 
told Abigail to let me know when the grocer 
called. 

I interviewed the young lady wearing high 
white kid boots and an amethyst pendant on her 
bare chest, who brought my next large consign- 
ment of groceries, that had to be bought in order 
to secure a little sugar. But when she heard 
that there were jam-jars to go back, she looked 
at me coldly from the doorstep, and hurriedly 
pushing her basket further up her arm (lest I 
should attempt to force them into it, I presume), 
the Abyssinian gold bracelets clanking the while, 
haughtily informed me that her motor was for 
delivery only, not for the cartage of empties, and 
suggested that I should write the manager and 
see if he would consent to receive them. 

I'm only human after all, and naturally any 
woman's temperature would rise in the face of 
such spurning of her free-will offerings. I didn't 

210 



The Old 

Wood-House 

write, and I'm using the jam-jars still. The 
nation doesn't seem any the worse off — though 
Virginia points out to me that the War might 
have ended sooner had I insisted on handing 
them over ; she says every little helps, as is 
proved by the fact that the very week she put 
her first 15s. 6d. into Exchequer Bonds the 
Government got the first " tank." 

At any rate, as I never eat preserves myself, I 
can still, even with a restricted sugar allowance, 
enjoy the peculiar pleasure that arises within a 
woman's soul when she is occasionally able to 
say, quite casually as it were, to a friend : 
" Would you care to have a pot of my new 
gooseberry and cinnamon jam ? They say it's 
rather good, though of course — etc." And the 
friend replies : " Oh, I should love it, dear ; such 
a treat ; that jar of ginger marmalade I took 
home last time was positively delicious. Every- 
one said — etc." 

One favourite item for collection among the 
cottagers is old bottles, and the stock you will 
see in some of their outhouses is often most 
extensive and varied. On one occasion an old 
man who was doing some odd days' work for me 
about the garden, in the absence of the handy- 
man, was deploring the way the rabbits devas- 
tated the cabbages. 

" J '11 get rid on 'em for 'ee if you'll leave 
'em to me ! " he assured me. I said I only 

211 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

wished he would, as they are a real plague at 
times. 

Imagine my horror a few days later when I 
took some friends along to see the vegetables, to 
discover a legion of empty whisky bottles, 
labels intact, neck downwards in the soil, and 
dotted about the vegetable garden in all direc- 
tions. The old man explained that they were 
put there to skeer they rabbits, as they was 
dreadful frit of bottles ! But my friends refused 
to believe that so honest-looking an old Amos 
could have brought them with him I 

The inside of the wood-house is as aloof as 
are the hills from our machinery-driven, smoke- 
begrimed, petrol-flavoured twentieth century. 
Even when work is in progress, here is no 
hustle ; there are no short cuts to the other side 
of a larch log ; the saw must go steadily, 
patiently, almost slowly, if it hopes to get 
through the tree at one standing. 

To step from the hot noonday glare, on a 
summer day, into the cool seclusion of these 
thick stone walls, is to enter a haven of peace 
and quiet that would seem to belong to the 
forest primeval rather than to this noise- 
strickea age. 

The window opening to the north excludes 
the fierce sun, but the yellow- washed walls give 
light and cheeriness. And the ivy, that ubiqui- 

212 



The Old 

Wood-House 

tous plant that scorns all disadvantages, and 
overcomes every obstacle, has crept in under 
the red tiles and hangs in festoons from the dark 
rafters; while in other places its pale green 
shoots have found for themselves a way clean 
through the thickness of the wall, pushing along 
crevices and around the stones, till at last they 
have come to light on the inner side, where they 
immediately proceed to drape lopped trunks and 
big branches standing in the corner. 

It is no mere accumulation of timber and 
sticks that is housed within these rough old 
walls. The very spirit of the forest seems to 
permeate the place ; everything is part and 
parcel of the big outside — the stones that pave 
the floor ; the heap of cones in one corner, 
waiting to brighten up smouldering winter fires 
and set them all aglow ; the solid sections of 
some sturdy oak, cut to just the right height 
for seats ; the bark stripped from a birch-tree, 
silver white even now, with grey and pinkish 
paper-like peelings and black breathing marks ; 
and the great brown branches of larch, a tracery 
of studded twigs and stems and cones, that have 
been placed across the end of the wood-house, 
and sweep the rafters at the top, looking, as you 
enter the door, like some wonderful rood-screen, 
dark brown with age, shutting off an ancient, 
yellow-washed chancel — though such a screen 
no mortal hand could ever carve ! 

213 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

The larch is always in evidence, and gives a 
resinous odour to the place, as does the sawdust 
by the bench, a rich brown pile, for very little of 
our hillside wood is white ; most of it ranges 
from reddish-brown to mahogany colour. 
Though here is a small creamy-white gate in 
course of construction — merely a little wicket 
to keep the calves out of the orchard — that is 
made of straight, round branches, slit down the 
centre, so that one side of each is flat and the 
other semicircular. The design is simplicity 
itself, some uprights with a few cross-pieces to 
hold them together and suggest a trellis ; yet 
the rich cream colour and the satiny surface of 
the wood make it a thing of distinct beauty. 
This is only a branch of the lime-tree, with the 
bark peeled off. 

In an ordinary way we seldom have a chance 
to notice the intrinsic beauty of wood itself. Of 
course we see it in its polished perfection when 
it comes to us in some choice piece of furniture, 
or panelling ; but this is not exactly the beauty 
to which I refer. Each branch, each tree trunk, 
has, in its unpolished state, definite characteris- 
tics of its own, quite distinct from those we see 
in the finished product civilization regards as the 
one end to be aimed for. These characteristics 
may be rough, and are frequently rugged ; but 
their appeal is often all the stronger for this 
fact. 

214 



The Old 

Wood-House 

Look at the wonderful ribbing on the rind of 
this Spanish chestnut ; what is it that wakes up 
in you when you study its lines and formation ? 
You cannot say, yet you respond to it in an 
indefinable manner. These branches of apple- 
wood, only gnarled old things, twisted and 
crooked and all out of shape some people would 
say ; yet you know that they would not have 
been nearly so lovely had they been straight as 
a dart. The larches with their strong bark 
showing grey and red and green, and furrowed 
like the sea sand — isn't there something in this 
that calls to you from back recesses of your 
being, and reminds you of the time when you — 
no, not you, but your ancestors, centuries ago, 
lived not so much in cities and houses made 
with hands, as out of doors, finding mystery in 
the green-roofed aisles and the cathedral dimness 
of forests long since felled ? 

To those of us who spend much time among 
these hills, each tree within the wood-house 
comes as a friend, with a definite personality and 
distinct association, and we regret its individual 
" going out," even though we know it to be 
inevitable. 

This giant, that leans against the outside 
wall, with no possibility of ever getting inside 
the door until it has been sawn in half, is a big 
fir (where a squirrel nested) that heeled right 
over in a blizzard. Here is the tall cherry-tree 

215 p 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

that died of a hollow heart, so beloved of the 
birds that they left us never a one if we got up 
later than half-past four the morning the 
cherries were ripe. This is the bough from the 
big plum-tree that broke down last August 
under its weight of fruit. These branches of 
old apple-trees are some of the winter wreckage 
that was strewn about the orchards ; see the 
lichen that covers them, could anything be 
more satisfying to look upon ? And these are 
some of the birches that seemed so frail as they 
bent to the wind on the slopes, with purple 
twigs and green leaves always moving ; until 
you have actually handled them you scarcely 
realize the strength and toughness of the delicate- 
looking bark, and you henceforth take a much 
more personal interest in Hiawatha and his 
canoe, even though his tree was another member 
of the family. And that convenient stump you 
are sitting upon is part of a hoary pear, that 
used annually to clothe itself in white — and then 
contribute more gallons of perry than it does to 
think of in these more sober days ! 

But no mere catalogue of contents can 
describe the charm of this little wind-swept 
place. To realise it you must first of all stand 
in need of quiet and retreat. When the craving 
comes upon you that impels us all, at one time 
or another, to get away from " things " and be 
alone with ourselves and Nature that we may 

216 



The Old 

Wood-House 

re-discover our souls, take a book if you will 
(it matters not what, for you won't read it, but 
to some it is essential that a book be in the hand 
if they are to sit still for a moment !) and climb 
the hill to that wood-house. 

Take a seat on the beech log by the door, 
and let yourself absorb some of the spirit of your 
environment. Keep quite still when the squirrel 
trails his bushy tail down the path, he won't 
inquire after your National Registration card ; 
neither will the pheasant, even though he raises 
his head with a suspicious jerk as he is feeding 
among the grass. Little rabbits will dart in and 
out of their burrows among the bracken ; the 
woodpecker will mock at you from a tree that 
waves above the roof; a robin will streak down 
from nowhere, like a flash, and stand as erect as 
a drill-sergeant on the corner of the work-bench 
while he inquires — but, there is an interruption ; 
he excuses himself for a moment while he goes 
off to thrash his wife who ventured to peep in at 
the window. Let them all have their way, they 
are as much a part of the general atmosphere 
of the place as the sweet scent of the evening 
dew upon the grass, and the ceaseless soughing 
of the wind in the branches ; moreover, this is 
home to them. 

The little folk of the forests are so com- 
panionable when you know them ; even the same 
butterflies will come again and again. I recently 

217 p 2 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

spent two hours a day for a fortnight in this 
spot, and all the time apparently the same 
butterfly hovered about the door, resting every 
few minutes on the warm rock among the stone- 
crop and fiercely chasing oft* any other butterfly 
that came within its evidently marked-out 
domain. And the little folk never bore you 
with their boastings, nor weary you with plati- 
tudes. They are content to let you think your 
own thoughts, to take you as you are, if you 
will but recollect that theirs are ancient privi- 
leges that have descended to them as a world-old 
heritage. It is you who, helpless in the grip 
of civilisation, sold your forest " hearth-rights " 
long since, and are now but a stranger, or at 
best a passing guest, in this out-door world that 
was man's first home. 

Gradually quiet possesses you, and you hear 
the trees talking of things that have far outstripped 
the clash and turmoil of modernity. What is 
it they say, those swaying boughs and branches 
that throb with every wind, and these that stand 
around you, silently, waiting their last service 
to man, each with some final sacrificial offering — 
the apple-wood giving in incense, the oak giving 
in strength, and the laurel giving in flame ? 

Theirs is a blessing rather than a message ; 
a lifting of a load from the over-burdened heart 
rather than the teaching of stern lessons. And 

21S 



The Old 

Wood-House 

as you shake off some of the dust of earth that 
has clogged your soul, you find yourself sending 
out thoughts in directions long forgotten ; the 
things of earth take on new proportions, the 
first being often last, and the last becoming first. 

The ministry of the forest trees can never 
be entirely explained ; but one remembers with 
reverence that our Lord Himself worked in 
some such little wood-house, where He touched 
the trees and fashioned the timber with His 
sacred Hands. 

Haply He left His Benediction when He 
passed that way. 



219 



XIII 

Abigail's " Lonely 



Sailor 



tt 



I'm sure I didn't start my career of usefulness 
with any intention of adopting a "lonely sailor." 
It was Abigail who bestowed him upon me. 

So far as 1 remember, it was something like 
this. 

Abigail had joined " The Domestic Helpers' 
Branch" of a Guild, organised by some well- 
meaning souls, for the purpose of befriending 
those men in the Army and Navy who are 
supposed to be without feminine kith or kin 
of any description to take an interest in them. 

She had been lured to a Guild meeting by 
her friend Pamela. 

Pamela, it should be explained, was my 
parlour-maid, originally, but when the national 
trumpet sounded for the reduction of one's staff 
of employees, she had moved a little further 
along the road, to "The Gables," a household 
that fancied they needed a parlour-maid worse 
than I did. 

We were mutually quite satisfied with the 
transference ; she had recently had a sister enter 
the service of a ducal family, and I had found 

220 



Abigail's 
"Lonely Sailor" 

the effort necessary to keep pace with the 
duchess exceedingly wearing. Kind hearts may 
be more than coronets, but they don't always 
show to such advantage, since one has to wear 
them inside. 

As we had parted with no recriminations on 
either side, naturally I begged Pamela to make 
my house " a home away from home " whenever 
she pleased, which she accordingly did ; and it 
was on one of her many " runs in " that she had 
expatiated on the Guild in question, and induced 
Abigail to sample it. 

And thus, Abigail had returned from the 
meeting moved to the very core of her kind 
heart by the harrowing details the speaker had 
related of fine, daring, courageous, and magnifi- 
cent specimens of British and Colonial manhood, 
left desolate and uncared for, pining for a word 
of sympathy and understanding from someone 
in the home-land — a word that never came, alas ! 

Abigail said it had quite put her off her 
supper that night, thinking of all those brave 
men, defending us and our homes right up to 
their very last breath — and yet, never a woman 
to get them a clean pair of socks or a hot meal 
when all was over; not a letter of sympathy 
nor a card with a line on it (here cook told her 
that funeral cards had quite gone out), not so 
much as a word of encouragement from any 

22J 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

relative under the sun, every woman at home 

selfishly engaged with her own concerns 

Why, it was a disgrace to the country that our 
heroes should be neglected and put upon by the 
women of the land in any such way ! And 
please would I mind her sending off a cake as 
soon as possible ? as of course she had adopted a 
lonely sailor, wouldn't have it on her conscience 
not to ; and cook was quite willing to make it, 
there was plenty of dripping, and we still had a 
fair amount of carraway seeds left, and they 
wouldn't come as expensive as currants — cook's 
cousins at the Crystal Palace liked carraways 
quite as well as currants if plenty of spice and 
peel was put in. The fried potatoes had nearly 
choked her, when she was telling cook about it 
all . . . no, not because she was talking with her 
mouth full ; she meant that the very thought of 
those poor lonely men was like eating sawdust. 
The speaker at the meeting had said he was sure 
each one present had only to ask her employer, 
and permission would be given immediately and 
gladly for a cake or potted meat or some other 
little delicacy to be sent once a week, as a sign 
of sympathy and understanding, to one of these 
grand yet lonely souls. 

Of course I immediately and gladly gave 
permission for the concrete sympathy to be sent 
once a week, but stipulated that it was to be a 
cake ; five shillings' worth of meat, as per my 

2ZZ 



Abigail's 
"Lonely Sailor 

butcher s charges, goes positively nowhere when 
"potted." I reckoned that a good dripping 
cake would give the desolate one a deal more 
sympathy for the money. 

(At the same time, to keep our rations 
properly balanced I cut off the small plate of 
spice buns, our only cake luxury, which had been 
in the habit of adorning our Sunday afternoon 
tea-table. ) 

And oh ! the care with which we sewed up 
that first box of sympathy in a remnant of cre- 
tonne, carefully putting it on wrong side out (to 
preserve its beauty), and hoping that when he 
undid it he would notice what a charming pattern 
of purple dahlias and blue roses was on the 
inside, and how the cretonne was just a nice size 
to make up into a boot bag if he chanced to be 
needing a new one. 

I pass over the next few weeks while we 
waited anxiously for the "lonely sailor" to 
materialise. He was engaged on board H.M.S. 
"The North Sea," and sailors, we know, are 
subject to wind and weather. Abigail said she 
almost wished now that she had selected a lonely 
soldier ; she could have had one if she had liked ; 
but she had chosen a sailor because she thought 
he might wear better. The German sailors didn't 
seem so pigheadedly bent on fighting as the 
German soldiers were. 

223 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

We did our best to keep the time from 
hanging idly on our hands by devising as much 
variety as possible for future menus, discussing 
the respective merits of cinnamon versus cocoanut 
as a flavouring, and wondering whether after all we 
shouldn't be more likely to buck up his desolate 
spirits (and more particularly his pen) if we sent 
a sultana cake next week, rather than gingerbread. 

I never before knew Abigail so prompt in 
her attendance upon the postman's knock as she 
was during those blank weeks that accompanied 
the first half-dozen cakes. And then, when she 
was in a very slough of dark despondency, and 
constantly wondering who had eaten them, since 
they had evidently never reached him, a letter 
arrived, and forthwith Abigail trod upon air — 
figuratively, I mean, not literally ; in reality I 
never heard her so noisy ; she went up and down, 
up and down the stairs past my study door where 
I was working, as though she had lost a step 
and was looking for it ! Finally, when I heard her 
singing " Days and moments quickly flying " as 
she O-eedar-mopped some neighbouring polished 
boards, I knew something must have happened, 
and I opened the door and asked if anything 
was the matter ? Whereupon she produced the 
letter from the bib of her apron — would have 
brought it before, only knew I liked everything 
to be perfectly quiet when I was working — and 
didn't I think it was a lovely letter ? 

224 



Abigail's 
"Lonely Sailor 

Though the handwriting wasn't much to 
boast of, and the spelling even worse, it was a 
straightforward, man-like letter ; he was evi- 
dently very pleased to have the cakes, and quite 
touched that the young lady should have been 
so kind as to think of him. He said his people 
were too far off to send him anything like that : 
his father and mother had gone out to Canada 
when he was ten years old. No one had sent 
him a parcel so far, therefore it was quite a 
surprise packet when the first one came. It was 
kind of her to ask if he would like some more ; 
all he could say was — " the more the merrier," 
if the young lady felt like it. 

And he signed himself, her faithful friend, 
Dick. 

After that Dick's name became so all-insistent 
in our midst that the whole household appeared 
to exist solely for the purpose of revolving round 
him. So constantly was it wafted on the four 
winds of heaven, that I remarked to the Head 
of Affairs : it seemed for all the world as though 
we had adopted a pet canary, and were everlast- 
ingly wondering if his seed glass had been 
replenished. 

There was only one slight shadow falling 
athwart the sunshine. Pamela (who was a 
great authority on " How to tell your character 
by your handwriting," having had her own 

225 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

delineated by her favourite penny weekly) had 
declared that Dick was anaemic and delicate ; 
she knew, because his handwriting sloped down- 
wards — a sure sign ; it was also cramped and 
irregular, an unfailing indication of a mean and 
grasping nature ; while the heavy downstrokes 
and the absence of punctuation proved as plain 
as plain could be that he was unreliable. 

Poor Pamela had had her own disappoint- 
ments in life, and had been warped a little 
thereby. 

Of course Abigail said she did not believe a 
word of such rubbish, and she rather liked the 
funny-shaped letters, and thought the black 
strokes looked particularly strong and healthy. 

Nevertheless, it was surprising how that 
trifle of seed, carelessly dropped, took root in 
our minds, and how from that date onwards 
we all regarded Dick as anaemic and in need of 
strenuous nourishment; while if more than a 
month elapsed between his communications, we 
couldn't help just wondering whether, after all, 
he might not be a little mean and grasping, and 
six weeks demonstrated with absolute certainty 
that he was unreliable ! 

A month after we received his first letter, 
there came another, and of course we all fluttered 
with excitement. 

Dick still approved of the cakes, I was glad 

226 



Abigail** 

u Lonely Sailor" 

to hear ; and since the young lady had asked if 
there was anything else she could send, he wasn't 
one to cadge for himself, but there was his mate 
Mick; he wanted to put in a word for him. 
Mick, it appeared, was even more lonely, more 
ignored by the world of women, more in need of 
sympathetic understanding than he was ; and — 
what was more to the point — was badly in want 
of a large scarf. Not that Mick would have 
asked for it himself, very independent Mick was ; 
but since he had so enjoyed half of every cake, 
and the nights were very cold this time of the 
year, and he had been his pal for years, why, he 
felt sure the young lady wouldn't mind his just 
mentioning it, as he couldn't think of telling 
her how short he was of socks himself. 

Mind I Why, we all regarded Dick as a 
public benefactor ! Abigail discovered that Dick 
and Mick rhymed, and as she said, you didn't 
have poetry like that brought to the door every 
day 1 She suddenly developed the airs of a 
society belle ; she borrowed my copy of " The 
Modern Knitting , Book ;" and, might she just 
run out for an hour in the afternoon to get some 
wool — you needed thicker wool for scarves than 
for socks — as the shops were so dark at night ? 

Cook, with her numerous cousins on H.M.S. 
" Crystal Palace " (a near neighbour of ours), 
was given to understand that she could now 
take a second place ! There was no getting 

227 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

away from the fact that Mr. Dick and Mr. Mick 
were actually engaged in the defence of the 
realm, while cook's cousins appeared to do 
nothing more than take joy-rides in motor- 
lorries to and fro along our road. 

Pamela alone was sceptical ; she said she 
should go cautiously, you never knew ! But 
then, she had every reason to be a pessimist ; 
even her " lonely soldier " had been sent out to 
China, and, naturally, you can't sympathise so 
understandingly with anyone when it takes a 
couple of months before you get an answer to 
your letter (if even he should chance to write by 
return), as when he is only across the Straits of 
Dover. She said she got tired of keeping copies 
of her letters, so that she might know what he 
was talking about when he wrote back — only he 
never did ! 

Surmising that Abigail would have her 
hand over-full if she took on the wants of both 
men, I said to her, " I think / had better adopt 
Mr. Mick, as I am sure you will have enough 
to do to provide et-ceteras for Mr. Dick ! You 
can take all the credit for it, and write the 
letters, but I will settle the bills." 

And having some socks and a large muffler 
all ready for dispatch to some needy man, I 
gave them to her and said I would pay the 
postage, if she would save me the trouble of 
doing them up and taking them to the post 

228 



Abigail's 
Lonely Sailor 



»• 



office. I also added that a cake had better be 
sent once a week to Mr. Mick in addition to the 
one sent to Mr. Dick. I know something of 
the appetite of the Navy — and what is one 
simple cake between two hearty men ! 

Abigail was effusively grateful, took it quite 
as a personal favour ; you might have thought I 
was settling an annuity on her own father ! She 
explained that naturally she felt more interest in 
Dick, and was more anxious to spend her money 
on him ; at the same time, she should certainly 
mention my name to Mr. Mick ; it wouldn't be 
fair to take all the credit to herself. 

So we left it at that. 

I consulted with cook on the subject of 
securing ample and pleasing variety, combined 
with unquestionable nourishment ; and judging 
by the amount of information she was able to give 
me as to what " they" like, you would have thought 
she had reared a whole family of husbands ! 

Forthwith, the house was steeped in a per- 
petual aroma of baking cakes (of course the 
cousins couldn't be neglected either), till I got 
nervous lest the Food Controller should make it 
his business to call. Upstairs we not only went 
cakeless, but in order to make sugar-ends meet, 
we drank unsweetened tea and coffee, a trial to 
all of us ! And stewed fruit requiring sugar was 
also taboo. 

On second consideration, I am inclined to 

229 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

think that it was not, first and foremost, my 
benevolence that led me to adopt Mick : it was 
primarily a matter of self-interest ! Even in war 
time it is necessary to have a little work done, if 
only occasionally, in the home ; and if the house- 
hold helpers were to take on yet another outside 
responsibility, in addition to the many already 
on their hands, I didn't see where my work 
would come in at all — and I can't do everything 
in the evening, after I get home from town. 
As it was, we were already knitting morning, 
noon, and night, for every branch of the Services ! 

I put the collection of figures and capital 
letters that represented Mick's address, into my 
pocket-book with other similar data. Periodically 
I handed Abigail pairs of socks or mittens, a 
body-belt, handkerchiefs, and similar utilities ; 
and when any sea-going event, such as a raid on 
a submarine base, or a " scrap " in the North 
Sea, or a warship mined, brought the Navy 
specially to my mind, I would go into the Stores 
and order a parcel to be sent to Mick, adding 
one for Dick also, if the occasion happened to 
be a harrowing one. At such times one feels 
one cannot do enough for our men ; and Dick 
and Mick little knew how often they benefited 
by the misfortunes of others. 

The first time I received a letter from my 
devoted friend Michael McBlaggan, I admit I 

230 



Abigail's 
u Lonely Sailor M 

was a trifle bewildered, as I couldn't for the 
moment " place " any member of the McBlaggan 
family ; but when I read the document through 
and noted how kind he considered it that my 
friend Miss Abigail should have introduced us, 
light dawned, and I sent him a post-card saying 
I hoped he would always let me know if he 
wanted anything further in the way of woollens. 

And thus the months wore on, punctuated 
by laboriously written communications from 
Dick, with an occasional card from Mick, who 
kept more in the background. The great attrac- 
tion, undoubtedly, was Dick. He entered into 
personal details, asked if the young lady had 
made the cakes herself. Here I understand cook 
was not too absorbed in her own relations to 
insist that full credit should be given to the right 
person ; and Abigail wrote explaining that as 
she was very much occupied, and too busy to 
attend to the cooking, a friend who lived with 
her always made the cakes. Whereupon by 
return post / received a sloping, heavy-down- 
stroked letter of thanks from the dutiful Dick ! 

On another occasion, Dick sent his photo 
(after being asked for it times out of number, I 
believe). It was not as satisfactory as it might 
have been, because it was an amateur snapshot 
group, and you know how easy it is to decipher 
the features when the hand camera has stood a 
quarter of a mile away (so as to include as much 

231 Q 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

of the landscape as possible), and everyone's 
face is in black shadow under a hat brim that 
has been tilted forward to exclude the full glare 
of the sun. 

Unfortunately he omitted to put a X against 
himself, and as there were a dozen men in the 
group all in slouch hats and farm attire (to say 
nothing of the women and children), there was 
little to help us ! 

But he did say that, as Abigail had told him 
Canada was the one place above all others that 
she longed to see, and how she was hoping to 
go there as soon as the war was over, he had 
sent his picture taken on a Canadian farm. It 
was just a little gathering photographed on 
someone's birthday. 

Still, as he hadn't given us any help in the 
matter, we had to decide ourselves which was 
the lonely sailor (though, as Abigail commented, 
she couldn't understand how, with such a large 
collection of friends, he could ever have come 
to be so alone in the world). We picked out 
a thin, anaemic-looking young man, who was 
standing beside a comfortable, matronly woman 
in a shady hat and a big apron ; and as her age 
might have been anything from thirty to sixty, 
we decided she was his mother, and I remarked 
what a nice homely soul she looked in her 
checked apron, and no wonder he was devoted 
to her, and how proud she must be of the dear 

232 



Abigail's 
"Lonely Sailor" 

lad — all of which Abigail accepted as a personal 
compliment. 

Winter gave way to spring, and in like 
rotation mince pies were superseded by Swiss 
roll (to make which eggs were struck off our 
breakfast menu), and marmalade replaced the figs 
and dates in the parcels that went out to some 
unknown spot on the world's ocean-spaces, all of 
which our wonderful Navy now controls. 

Likewise, cretonne gave place to unbleached 
calico, my remnants being exhausted. 

Existence downstairs fluctuated between 
heights of excitement and depths of gloom. The 
Crystal Palace authorities had a most unreason- 
able way of shipping men off to Mesopotamia, 
Salonika, Hongkong, Archangel, or anywhere 
else where they thought the air would prove 
salubrious, without a single word of inquiry as to 
whether the transfer met with cook's approval. 
Hence, there was a series of constantly recurring 
blanks to mar what would otherwise have been 
a life of unsullied joyousness ; and at such times 
of depression cook darkly hinted that punching 
tram tickets and ordering people to " move up a 
little on that side, please," would be a deliriously 
exhilarating occupation compared with the 
monotony of cake-making for nobody-knows- 
who ! 

As every gift-giver is aware, there is invari- 

233 q 2 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

ably a grey hiatus between the sending off of 
the gift and the arrival of the recipient's grati- 
tude ; hence, the bustle and excitement of getting 
off each parcel of eatables and pair of socks and 
tin of tobacco was always followed by a spell 
of wistful longing, while the postal authorities, 
out of sheer perversity (we presumed), held back 
the letter that would have meant so much to 
Abigail. 

Moreover, Pamela was doing anything but 
contribute to the gaiety of nations I She was 
often in with Abigail on her spare evenings ; 
and seemed to devote the time to perpetual 
croaks, on one occasion ending with the assur- 
ance that, for her part, she should have nothing 
to do with a man who was merely a common 
sailor ; self-respect, if nothing else, would make 
her look for something better than that. 

I am glad to say Abigail had sufficient spirit 
left to retort that if he was good enough to 
fight for her, he was good enough for the 
bestowal of a cake. Nevertheless, a decided cool- 
ness sprang up between them ; and for a week 
or two after this exchange of confidences, 
Abigail appeared to be sinking in a rapid 
" decline " (as they used to call it), and I felt 
I was positively inhuman to expect her to do a 
hand's turn in the house. 

Yet life was not entirely bereft of purple 
patches. The gloom consequent upon the 

234 



Abigail's' 
"Lonely Sailor " 

Silence of the Navy lifted occasionally. As, for 
instance, when we had a bomb drop in our road. 
Yes, in our very road ! — or, at any rate, it was 
only just round the corner ; and, as everybody 
knows, one affectionately appropriates as one's 
own all neighbouring roads (quite irrespective of 
the rentals, too) if they chance to possess a 
bomb. And, in any case, it would have dropped 
in our road if only it had been a hundred yards 
nearer this way. 

Ours was quite an up-to-date bomb, one of 
the sort that "went clean through the wood 
pavement to the depth of a couple of feet, and 
made a hole large enough to bury a man in, and 
not a sound window within a mile radius." 
That's the kind of bomb ours was ! And it was 
trimmed in the latest fashion, with a policeman, 
and a cord right round it, and two gentlemen 
with pickaxes who scratched the surface of the 
wood blocks occasionally in the intervals of 
looking important. They were wearing them 
like that in London at the time. 

Of course we, in common with the whole 
parish, swelled with pride ; for a while all social 
distinction was waived, rich and poor alike took 
the same interest in the bomb, or at least in the 
hole it had made ; the bomb itself was removed 
so quickly that no local eye save that of the 
police and the pickaxe gentlemen ever saw it; 
though the milkman averred that, as he was 

235 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

driving to the station in the early dawn, he saw 
a van going in the opposite direction; he 
couldn't see what was in it, hence it certainly 
was carrying away the bomb. 

For the rest of us, however, we had to be 
content with a brave effort to get as near to the 
cord as we could, and crane our heads above our 
shorter brethren in order to catch a glimpse of 
the gaping void, while a thrill went down every 
spine, irrespective of bank balances. 

And we might have remained in that splen- 
didly democratic frame of back unto this day 
(no one being anxious to have any closer ac- 
quaintance than his neighbour with the bomb), 
had it not been that a piece of shrapnel was 
discovered in the garden next us. Whereupon 
the owner developed much upliftedness, and his 
servants bragged amain. 

My own staff took it even more to heart 
than I did ; and it was amazing how much time 
it was necessary for all hands to spend in the 
garden in order to cut a cabbage or gather three 
sprigs of parsley. Between them they didn't 
leave an inch of the garden unexplored, and it is 
a fair-sized one. 

Then the following morning Abigail rushed 
in excitedly with the news that she had dis- 
covered a piece of shrapnel in the bonfire debris. 
I went down to inspect, and was shown an 
oblong piece of curved iron, wider at one end 

236 



«« 



Abigail's 
Lonely Sailor" 



than the other, and with a sharp spike at the 
wider end. I confess that to me it was wonder- 
fully reminiscent of the old trowel that had lost 
its wooden handle and had lain unhonoured and 
unsung for a year in the leaf-heap ; but I said 
nothing about that. Whatever its origin, it was 
crumpled up a bit with heat, one could see — 
not surprising either, as we had had a roaring 
bonfire two days running and burnt up all the 
pile of dead leaves. 

When I was devising plans for its removal, 
they said, Hadn't it better wait there till the 
master came home ? 

But the Head of Affairs is celebrated for his 
truthfulness ; and he and that old trowel had 
lived on terms of unalloyed friendship for years 
(till the split came over the handle), and — well, 
I merely said I thought we would deal with it 
at once ; no need to add to the master's many 
worries. 

Cook said : Oughtn't it to be immersed in 
a pail of water? Her cousin at the Crystal 
Palace had told her that , etc. 

So we got a pail of water; I bade them 
stand well out of harm's way, while I put it in. 
Of course they feebly offered to do it for me, 
but seemed relieved when I insisted on taking 
all risks ; one ran to one side of the garden and 
one to the other, and then decided they should 
feel safer if they both stood close together, 

237 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

Just as I was about to pick it up, cook 
shrieked out to me not to touch it with my 
hands, as it might be poisoned. I said I would 
take it up with a pair of tongs ; but she said she 
thought it ought to be insulated with china. It 
might be electrified with the shock ; you never 
knew what inventions those fiends were up to, 
and one of her cousins who was in the electri- 
cians' corp (or something like that) had told her 
that , etc. 

So we compromised with a large china soup 
ladle and a big wooden spoon, which I used like 
chop sticks, and at last got the shrapnel into the 
water. Of course it was disappointing when it 
dropped heavily to the bottom without so much 
as a sizzle, much less a bang. Still — we had the 
comfortable feeling that we were on the safe 
side now. 

Eventually I had it in my study. I said it 
would be safer there. But though the neigh- 
bourhood was thus debarred from seeing and 
handling it, the fame of it spread with amazing 
rapidity; and the lady across the road arrived 
quite early in the afternoon, having heard from 
her housemaid, who had heard it from her 
gardener, who had heard it from the road- 
sweeper, who had heard it from the grocer's 
man, who had heard it from my cook, that I 
had a huge shell weighing half-a-hundredweight, 
covered with venomous s>pikes, all deadly poison, 

?3§ 



Abigail's 
• Lonely Sailor" 

that had dropped down the chimney right into 
the centre of the kitchen fire, where it had been 
found, still hissing, when they went to rake out 
the ashes in the morning. 

I didn't display the fragment to my neigh- 
bour, nor to subsequent callers ; it is such a pity 
to rob people of happiness. I merely said I 
thought it better to keep it well away from all 
vibration, as so far it hadn't exploded. And 
one and all assured me I was very wise, and 
remembered pressing engagements elsewhere. 

I reached the zenith of my fame when a 
police inspector, accompanied by a subordinate, 
rang the front door bell, and understood that I 
had in my possession a portion of a Zeppelin 
that had foundered on my lawn. It appeared 
that he had been up all night, and had worn 
out miles of shoe leather, hunting for the missing 
half of that Zeppelin ; and had I the gondola as 
well ? He seemed to suspect that I might be 
holding that back in order to have it stuffed and 
put under a glass shade in the drawing-room. 

He looked disappointed when I showed him 
the fragment of iron ; said they had plenty of 
bits that size ; but he admitted that none of 
them had a spike like that at one end, and 
darkly hinted that it might be just the missing 
link they were looking for. Then he and the 
subordinate tenderly carried it away between 
them. 

339 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

We all intend to visit the War Museum 
later on. Personally, I'm very keen to see what 
they ticket it. 

Nevertheless, when each little excitement 
subsided, reaction set in, and Abigail's spirits 
promptly dropped to zero. But at length a 
post card arrived in time to save her (and us) 
from utter collapse, and the bath-taps were 
once more polished to the tune of " Days and 
moments quickly flying." 

Thus, as I have already stated, winter 
merged into spring ; and then spring made way 
for early summer (as I've known it do before), 
and we racked our brains to find a suitable 
substitute for pork pie. 

Oh, yes, we had departed months ago from 
the " nothing but cake " rule. We decided that 
a thin, anaemic-looking young man (as per the 
photographic group,/ needed still more feeding 
up, and there wasn't a sufficiency of body- 
building material in modern cake, as everyone 
knows who has sampled war-flour, even with 
currants as well as carraways. So the Head of 
Affairs and I stoically relinquished the one thin 
slice of breakfast bacon that we had shared 
between us each morning, and devoted the pro- 
ceeds to pork pies for the Navy — in accordance 
with the highest ideals of the Food Controller. 

But, as every good housewife knows, you 

240 



Abigail's 
"Lonely Sailor" 

mustn't feed your family — let alone your friends 
— on pork pie when there isn't an R in the 
month ; and with April nearing its end, and 
May looming, what was to take its place ? As 
cook said, you are so dreadfully handicapped 
when you have to sew up your parcel in calico ; 
you can't send soused mackerel, or Welsh rabbit 
with Red Tape tied round you like that ! 

Abigail suggested potted shrimps ; but cook 
scornfully reminded her that seafaring men, 
living in the midst of shrimps and salt fish all 
their days, weren't likely to hanker after it 
at meal times. We compromised on savoury 
cheese patties — a come-down after the pork pie, 
we admitted ; only we could think of nothing 
else equally nutritive and seasonable. 

Unfortunately, when I ordered extra cheese 
to be sent weekly to meet the naval demands 
(and up to that time I hadn't seen any rules 
for rationing cheese), the Stores "greatly re- 
gretted," etc., but there was a scarcity at the 
moment ; they could let me have a tin of 
golden syrup, however, or, they had a fair stock 
of candles. 

So we removed cheese from our upstairs 
dietary, consoling ourselves with the thought 
that, at best, it was only half a course. 

Meanwhile it was pleasant to know that the 
fleet had voted the cheese patties " A 1," due, so 
cook said, to the fact that she had told Dick to 

241 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

put the patties into a slow oven for ten or twelve 
minutes before eating, as " it made all the 
difference." 

I was beginning to get nervy with the strain 
of it all. You see, if a letter delayed in coming, 
then the question arose : Did they like the last 
parcel? or, had we sent, by chance, something 
they didn't care for? And then my household 
assistants looked darkly at me ; /was to blame 
for ever having suggested lemon curd tartlets. 
As Abigail said, probably lemon didn't agree 
with Dick, it didn't always with thin people. 

Cook acquiesced, adding that you never can 
tell ! There was her eldest sister's husband, a 
perfect terror for temper; yet look what he 
saved her in doctor's bills — he might have had 
epileptic fits instead ! 

On the other hand, there was her uncle (no 
relation to her really, only her aunt's husband, 
and second husband at that), do what you would, 
you couldn't rouse him to take an interest in his 
food or anything else. Her poor aunt had spent 
a little fortune on medicine ; and as bright a 
house as you could want, not shut off with a 
whole lot of garden like my house, but nice and 
close on to the pavement, with heaps of traffic 
going by. And exactly opposite, the broken 
railings that the motor-van ran into and killed 
the driver ; heaps of people came to look at the 

243 



Abigail's 
"Lonely Sailor " 

place Sunday afternoons. But her uncle never 
took a bit of notice of it. 
No, you never can tell 1 

All the same, I felt guilty, and began to 
wonder how long I should be able to hold out ! 
And then 

It was a lovely Saturday in May. We had 
just got up from a late lunch when there came a 
violent ring at the door bell. The Head of 
Affairs was in the hall at the moment, and he 
opened the door — to find two big sailor-men on 
the doorstep, each carrying a parcel. They 
inquired for me. 

Now, like most other households, khaki and 
navy blue always find a welcome at our door for 
the sake of our own who are away, serving their 
country, and those who have already laid down 
their lives in the cause of Right and Justice. 

So the Head of Affairs walked them straight 
in upon me, without waiting to ask for their 
birth certificates. 

Did I say they were big? That isn't the 
word for it I They were more than that, they 
were massive ; tall, broad, well-made, and tough- 
looking, with beaming, round, red faces ; they 
ought to have been pictured, just as they were, 
for a naval recruiting poster. 

They looked a little confused, for the moment, 
at finding themselves precipitated into an unex* 

243 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

pected drawing room; but they made straight 
for me, with that large, rolling stride inseparable 
from the British sailor. Fortunately the room 
isn't beset in the orthodox fashion with a multi- 
tude of bric-a-bric obstacles in the way of small 
chairs and tables, for they seemed to sweep the 
decks fore and aft as they strode over the carpet, 
and I thought I should never find my hand 
again after they had both given it a hearty shake. 

As I looked at the big, burly fellows, both 
of them well on to forty I should say, I knew 
instinctively that these were our two forlorn 
sailor-lads — our poor anaemic, lonely Dick, and 
desolate, unsympathised-with Mick. And I 
must say I never saw two men bear neglect 
more bravely ! 

At first, conversation seemed all on my side : 
they sat stiffly on the extreme edge of their 
chairs, while Dick answered in monosyllables, 
Mick seeming permanently tongue-tied ! But 
the Head of Affairs produced cigars warranted 
to banish all nervous embarrassment and to 
induce a man to sit comfortably anywhere ; and 
soon they were giving us details of their homes 
and relatives — small things, perhaps, that are 
apparently the same the world over, but mean 
so much to each individual. It was still Dick 
who did most of the talking. He was 
undoubtedly the more attractive of the two. 

As they were constantly making wild 

244 



Abigail's 
Lonely Sailor 



»» 



clutches at their parcels which threatened to 
tumble off their knees without the slightest 
provocation, we offered to put them on the 
table. But Dick explained, with almost child- 
like confusion, that they were presents for 
me and the other lady. And would I mind 
taking them ? He made Mick open his bundle 
first. There came to light an anchor, the 
like of which I had never seen before, though 
I had heard of their existence. It was about 
eighteen inches long, made of red velvet stuffed 
with sawdust so as to form an immense pin 
cushion. This was most elaborately decorated 
with beads — as I thought at first — but it proved 
to be pins with coloured glass heads. Length- 
wise down the anchor was this inscription, 
carried out in large white-headed pins, 

" affection's offering." 

There were various ribbon bows, and ends and 
tags finished off with beads, and a cord for 
hanging it on the wall ; altogether, it was a most 
ornate, glittering creation ! 

Keeping company with the anchor was a 
wooden rolling pin, that had been enamelled 
a delicate pink, with hand-painted sprays of 
forget-me-nots at intervals. This also had bows 
and ends and a ribbon to hang it on the wall ; it 
likewise bore an inscription : 

" TO GREET YOU." 

245 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

While I praised the colouring, and the work* 
manship of both, I promptly chose the rolling pin. 

Mick looked a trifle disappointed, and 
explained that he had really intended the 
anchor for me ; and thought the rolling pin 
would be nice for the lady who had sent the 
cakes. 

But I clung to the rolling pin ; even though 
it wasn't quite in line with my ideas of decora- 
tive art, its sentiment was so non-committal ! 
Besides, I wanted Abigail to have the anchor. 
Even though it be but a passing incident, it 
is pleasant to receive an " affection's offering " 
occasionally, when we are young. 

Dick's parcel contained a large box covered 
with shells, and very pretty it was. In a smaller 
packet he had a coral necklace. I chose — and 
praised — the box with a perfectly clear conscience 
this time. You have to go to a great deal of 
trouble before you can vulgarise a sea-shell ; and, 
fortunately, the box-maker hadn't taken any 
trouble at all ; he had merely stuck them 
haphazard over the cardboard lid, with a border 
of small ones round the edges, and the effect 
was lovely. I also knew that Abigail would 
much prefer the necklace. You can't carry a 
big box about with you, to display it casually to 
your friends. 

My genuine pleasure over the presents thawed 
them to such an extent, that Dick then explained 

246 . — 



Abigail's 
"Lonely Sailor " 

they had come round with the intention of taking 
us out to a picture palace ; Mick wanted to take 
me, and he, Dick, would take Miss Abigail. 
But, he added hesitatingly, that perhaps, after 
all, that wasn't the sort of thing I would care 
about ; and he looked rather beseechingly at the 
Head of Affairs, hoping we should understand 
what he couldn't manage to put very clearly 
into words. 

We did understand. Gratitude is none too 
plentiful in these days that we could afford to 
flout it because it chanced to appear in uncon- 
ventional guise. We appreciated all that they 
had planned to do by way of saying thank you 
for what we had done for them — and it was little 
enough we had done, when one considers our 
debt to such men as these ! 

I explained that though I was engaged that 
evening, Abigail was not ; and they must now 
show her those parcels. 

She had no knowledge that they were in the 
house ; and you should have seen her face when 
she answered the bell and I introduced Mr. Dick 
and Mr. Mick. 

In reply to my inquiries as to what she could 
do in the way of hospitality, she was certain 
that cook could get a really nice meal ready 
for them in a few minutes ; and if even cook 
couldn't she, Abigail, could, and Pamela had 
just come in, and she would help ; it wasn't the 

247 R 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

slightest trouble — and she looked positively 
radiant as she took the two in tow. 

Having told them that we would wait on 
ourselves for the rest of the day, and no one 
need stay in, I was not surprised to hear a gay 
party setting off a little later on ; but I was 
surprised to see that it was Pamela, and not 
cook, who made the fourth in the quartette ! 

Pamela and Abigail hadn't spoken since the 
episode previously mentioned. It was curious 
that she should have chanced to call for the 
purpose of burying the hatchet, the very 
afternoon that the " common sailors," as she had 
called them, should be there ! 

For the time of the sailors' leave I cut the 
housework down to the minimum and arranged 
a week of cold dinners, Spartan-like in their 
simplicity, for ourselves, so that " evenings out " 
could be taken as often as my household assis- 
tants pleased. 

I hoped to find the kitchen radiating sun- 
shine in consequence. Picture my consternation, 
therefore, when I came upon Abigail weeping 
her eyes out in their sitting-room one afternoon 
(when only half of the leave had expired too !), 
the coral necklace flung into one corner, and 
" affection's offering " lying face downwards 
under the table. 

To give her opportunity to pull herself 
together, I picked up the coral necklace and 

248 



Abigail's 
"Lonely Sailor" 

inquired what Mr. Dick would be likely to 
think if he saw it there. She sobbed that she 
didn't know and she didn't care. 

" That Pamela " Then I saw it all in a 

flash! 

Well, to make a long story short, Pamela, 
whom I had long known to be as unscrupulous 
as she was good-looking, had stepped in and 
carried off Dick right from under Abigail's nose ! 
She had seen the two men arrive on the previous 
Saturday afternoon, and that accounted for her 
unexpected call. She had appropriated Dick 
from the first minute she saw him. 

"And now," said Abigail into her handker- 
chief, "just ten minutes ago, when I ran out to 
post some letters, who should I see coming out 
of The Gables, but Dick and that creature, 
starting off together for all the world as though 
they had known each other all their lives. Only 
last night she had the sauce to say she was going 
out to Canada when the war was over ! ' : 

I felt truly sorry for the girl, and it was some 
satisfaction to me to reflect that Pamela wasn't 
quite as successful as she imagined ! 

" I don't think she will see much of Dick 
even if she does go out to Canada," I said ; " I 
don't think his wife would have a room to spare 
to invite her there — with seven children. I dare- 
say Dick told you that the lady in the checked 
apron was Mrs. Dick ? " I stooped to pick up 

249 R 2 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

the forlorn anchor, and dusted it most carefully, 
to give her time to recover. 

" No ! " she gasped, and then went on bitterly, 
" he hasn't had a chance to tell me a thing, with 
Pamela talking to him the whole time I But, of 
course, I guessed all along he was married." She 
meant to take her disappointment bravely. " / 
don't want to marry anyone ; men are all alike. 
But it does make you wild, when " 

I was facing the window, but Abigail had 
her back to it. Therefore she did not see what 
1 saw coming along the road — a large bunch of 
flowers, surmounted by Mick's round, jovial face. 
" I think I should hang this up," I interrupted 
her, having thoroughly dusted the anchor ; " after 
all, Mick has no wall of his own to hang it on ; 
he isn't like Dick, with a home and wife and 
family — and one doesn't get ' affection's offering ' 
every day ! " 

" Oh, but that wasn't really meant for me," 
and Abigail's grief threatened to break out afresh. 
" Mick was so taken with the lovely parcels you 
sent, and he thought as you lived with me you 
were a widow, and " 

Fortunately, I was spared the rest, for the 
downstairs door bell rang with a vehemence that 
was now most familiar, and Abigail, patting her 
hair and her cap into shape, went smilingly 
down the passage to answer the side door. 



250 



XIV 

The Bonfire 

I had pointed out, quite nicely and kindly, to 
Virginia, that she was not clipping the top of the 
square box-tree table straight and even ; and she 
had pointed out, quite witheringly, to me that 
she was cutting it by perspective, adding that if 
I had only been privileged to learn perspective 
when I was young, I should have known that 
for a thing to be correct in its outlines and 
proportions it must necessarily run askew and 
aslant and out-at-corners, just as the top of the 
box-tree table was now doing. She assured me, 
however, that it would appear all right, she 
thought, if I looked at it from an airship above, 
with half- closed eyes. 

And then she advised me to do a little 
hoeing. 

I ignored her sarcasm, knowing full well that 
a pair of shears, applied by amateur hands to 
tough overgrown greenstuff, is apt to provoke 
cutting remarks when the wielder has got to the 
moist stage and the hedge is looking like a 
ploughed field. 

You see, there was an inwardness in her last 
remark ; for hoeing looks an easy, graceful, care- 
free occupation — till you try it. My own 

251 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

method is distinctive ; I didn't invent it, it came 
to me as a natural inspiration. I find I in- 
variably start to hoe with my back, doubling up 
more and more, and aching more and more, as I 
proceed with the hacking. Then, as I warm to 
the work (and it's very much warm as a rule), I 
likewise hoe with my teeth. By the time I have 
set and ground these nearly to nothing — my 
hands all the while getting lower and lower down 
the handle of my tool — I find myself beginning 
to hoe quite viciously with my head. 

When I have extracted all the motive power 
I can from this part of me, and have projected it 
so far in front of the rest of me — hoe included — 
that I almost lose my balance, the only thing 
left for me to do, by way of piling up yet more 
energy and effort, appears to be to go down 
on all fours, seeing that by this time I am 
clasping the hoe handle at about a foot from the 
ground. 

Fortunately, it is just here that I usually 
realize what I am doing, and I straighten my 
rounded back, and undo my teeth (that doesn't 
sound polite, but you know what I mean), and 
return my head to its proper place. I then 
remind myself that I am not hoeing at all 
scientifically, that most of the energy I have 
been putting forth has been waste — because mis- 
directed — force. 

Whereupon 1 stand at ease, and other things 

252 



The 
Bonfire 

like that. Maintaining the upright as far as I 
can, I take hold of the top end of the long 
handle of my weapon, and, still keeping quite in 
the perpendicular, I merely hoe with my arms, 
thus saving the rest of me quite a considerable 
number of unclassified aches. So long as I can 
remember to keep my vertebrae like this, all is 
well, and I really get through a fair amount of 
work. But, alas, I soon forget. 

One thing I have never yet managed to do is 
to keep cool and collected, my misfortune being 
that I boil up so soon. My hat gets out of 
angle, my hair flattens out where it ought to be 
wavy, and waves around where it ought to lie 
flat ; and — worst of all — it ceases to worry me 
that these things are so. 

And then I open a periodical wherein some 
unknown celebrity has been photographed " at 
home " ; and she is sure to be shown " in the 
garden," where, behold ! you see her in the airiest 
of fashionable nothings in the way of a white 
frock, accompanied by a ten-guinea hat, a twenty- 
guinea dog, and a sixpence-halfpenny trowel — 
all worn with consummate photographic grace, 
as she artlessly sets to work to transplant a hoary 
wistaria that has smothered the (photographer's) 
verandah for fifty years, explaining to the inter- 
viewer, meanwhile, how she simply adores 
gardening, how she gets all her ideas for the 
dresses she wears in the third act from her pet 

253 



Between the Larch* 
woods and the Weir 

bed of marigolds, and how she never dreams of 
taking part in a first night performance without 
having previously run the lawn-mower twice 
round the gravel paths. 

Clever creature ; you don't wonder she is 
labelled a celebrity ; any woman who can keep 
that hat on while using that trowel, has accom- 
plished something ! 

I didn't feel like hoeing just then, no matter 
what the cost of my gardening outfit. The 
moment seemed to call for non-strenuous occu- 
pation that would admit of leisurely movement 
and unlimited pauses with nothing doing — 
which is what I find a mind like mine requires. 

Of course there was plenty of hoeing waiting 
to be done, there always is ; I never knew a soil 
so chock-full of weed-seeds as ours seems to be, 
and I never knew a place where folks are so little 
worried by them. Where things grow as easily as 
they4o about our hills and valleys (and where the 
angle of the garden is just what ours is), you will 
find that the native reduces land-labour to the 
minimum, and nothing is disturbed unless abso- 
lutely necessary. Reasonably, if you have left 
the hoe at the top of the garden, and the top is 
a hundred feet above the bottom of the garden 
where you are standing, you think twice before 
you climb up and fetch it. 

As one result of this universal conservation 

254 



The 
Bonfire 

of energy, our local nettle crop is one of the 
finest in the kingdom, I verily believe. 

" Why are those things left standing in every 
field corner ? " I asked a farmer on one occasion, 
pointing to the usual grey-green waving jungle 
of weeds. 

" They nettles ? " he questioned, in surprise ; 
" well, what's the good of wasting attention on 
'em ? They don't hurt no one ! " 

Incidentally I may say it is always well to 
criticize the methods employed on other people's 
land rather than those practised on your own, 
since most right-minded employes resent any 
implication, no matter how politely you wrap it 
up, that improvement is possible ; and if you 
question the why and wherefore of anything, it 
may be mistaken for fault-finding in this imagi- 
native age. Hence, unless the handy-man chances 
to be one of exceptional make up, I go farther 
afield when gleaning information. 

One day I watched a man very leisurely in- 
specting a thistle in a meadow by the weir, and 
then, with a deliberation that was most restful to a 
harried, hustled, war-time Londoner, he tenderly 
and carefully cut it off near the ground with a 
scythe. After he had decapitated about twenty 
thistles in this way, he naturally needed a little 
time for recuperation, and sat down on the river 
bank to meditate. I hadn't liked to interrupt 
him when he was working, because so far as I 

255 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

could roughly estimate, there were thirteen 
thousand four hundred and fifty- three thistles in 
the meadow — approximately, you understand — 
and we don't work according to trade union 
hours here ; sometimes we start an hour later 
and leave off an hour earlier, and miss out 
several in between. But since he had evidently 
reached his rest-hour — and remembering that 
one of my own fields was plentifully dotted with 
thistles at the moment, and feeling quite equal 
myself to that gentle picturesque swish of the 
scythe — I asked him whether that process killed 
the thistle right out ? (My business instinct for- 
bade my wasting time on the job if it would all 
have to be done over again later on.) 

No, he said, he didn't think as how it 
would kill the thistles right out. 

Then why did he do it that way ? I asked, 
instead of spudding the thing right up by the 
root? 

" Well " — and he scratched his head thought- 
fully — " doing it like this jest diskerridges of 'em 
a bit, and isn't sech a deluge o' trouble as moot- 
ing 'em right out would be." And with that he 
promptly dropped thistles, and proceeded to 
discuss the fiendishness of the Germans. 

He had a long talk (there wasn't room for 
me to say anything), and gave recipes for annihi- 
lating completely everything connected with 
them (excepting thistles ; I presume they have 

256 



The 

Bonfire 

some ; they deserve a good crop, anyhow), 
finishing up with — 

" But thur — what I says about 'em I won't 
exackly repeat in yer presence, m'm ; for my 
wife often says to me, * It won't do nobody no 
pertickler good,' she says, ' if you gets yerself shut 
out o' Heaven by yer langidge,' she says, 'just 
to spite they Huns, what don't even hear it ! ' " 

For a full two minutes he worked that 
scythe with real zest, as though onslaughting the 
enemy. 

Perhaps his method is right (in regard to 
thistles, I mean), perhaps it is wrong ; I've 
never gone sufficiently deep into the subject 
to be competent to pass an opinion. But I do 
know that the larger proportion of handy men 
who have honoured me with their patronage 
(though there are conspicuous exceptions) in- 
variably weed on these lines of least resistance, 
and "jest diskerridge 'em" — though I own it 
takes a lot to discourage our weeds ! 

Not feeling like diskerridging weeds at the 
moment, I asked Ursula to suggest some occu- 
pation for my idle hands, though I didn't put 
it like that ; I inquired which of the many jobs 
needing urgent attention I had better tackle 
next. (It came to the same thing in the end; 
but instead of advertising my natural indolence, 
I hoped it would convey an impression that I 

257 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

was rushing pell-mell through an endless suc- 
cession of tasks. ) 

Ursula was sitting on a pile of logs under a 
big fir tree inside the orchard gate — oh yes, 
there are firs in the orchard, and lilacs, and 
daffodils, and snowdrops, and a huge Welling- 
tonia, and a trickle of water with forget-me-nots 
and mint on its brink ; we're not at all particular 
about classification. She was darning a stocking, 
and it seemed a lengthy job. Not that there 
was any large, vulgar gash in the stocking ; it 
was merely suffering from general war-time 
debility, and was one of those that you can go 
on and on darning, and still find more thin places 
to run up and down. 

Have you ever noticed what a snare a 
stocking of this description can be ? You can 
sit at it for an hour or so, until it seems easier 
to go on darning it than to bestir yourself to do 
anything else. In the end, you haven't accom- 
plished much, considering the time you've been 
about it, but you have acquired a large dose of 
the virtuous and exemplary feeling that is always 
the outcome of stocking-darning. 

Ursula had got like that, though I wouldn't 
have you think I under- estimated her efforts, for 
it was my apparel she was darning. 

" I often think that a garden embodies all the 
philosophy of life," she replied to my query, in 
a detached way, as she closely inspected the 

258 



The 

Bonfire 

stocking foot drawn over her hand, in order to 
pounce upon any further signs of impending 
dissolution. 

" I seem to fancy I've heard that " 

" Oh, I've no doubt someone has said it 
before me. I've noticed over and over again 
that people plagiarize my really cleverest remarks 
before I've actually had time to say them 
myself; and I think something ought to be 
done to prevent the infringement of copyright 
in this barefaced way. But all the same, whether 
anyone has, or has not, already helped themselves 
to this unique creation of my brain, the fact 
remains that I thought it out for myself, alone 
and unaided. And the more I meditate upon 
it, the more I notice what heaps of things in the 
garden resemble life." 

" As for example ? " 

" Well, slugs, for instance, and the bindweed, 
and the rabbits, and the broad beans. They all 
seem to typify that here we have no abiding 
anything." 

I agreed mournfully, as I thought of the 
succulent, hopeful-looking scarlet runners that 
the slugs had eaten right through the tender 
main stems close to the ground. It was a sad 
awakening for us the day we found a few score 
of limp and dying remains, where over-night we 
had watered as promising a row of youngsters 
as one could have wished to see. To our grieving 

259 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

spirits, it seemed as though it wouldn't have 
been nearly so bad if they had eaten the leaves 
and left us the stems, at least more leaves might 
have grown, whereas now ! 

And the bindweed — where could you find a 
more striking analogy to original sin ? Flaunting 
beautiful flowers (which I greatly love), yet all 
the while spreading wicked roots out of sight, 
choking everything it lays hold of, turning up in 
the most unlooked-for places — but there is no 
need to write more under this heading ; a healthy 
crop of bindweed (and I never knew one that 
wasn't most irritatingly healthy) could give points 
to a preacher every Sunday in the year, and then 
have enough to spare for the week-night services. 
And when he had done with bindweed, he could 
start afresh on mint. 

Rabbits, again, are dear things, with an 
appeal that is quite different from that of any 
other of the wild things. Sometimes in the 
past, when I have been doomed to sit for an 
hour or so in the airlessness and weariness of 
crowded hall or place of entertainment, or in 
the loneliness of a congested social function, 
where everybody is too buzzingly busy with 
" being social " to have time to say a word to 
anyone, I just switch my mind right off the 
glare and the heat and the stuffiness and the 
superficiality and the heartlessness, and take a 
look at the little orchard adjoining the cottage 

260 



The 

Bonfire 

garden, and for just a minute I watch the 
rabbits, nibbling the grass, sitting up on their 
hind legs to get a better view of any possible 
enemy-approach, and scampering back to cover 
in the coppice with a bobbing of white tails, at 
the least suspicion of danger. To a woman 
there is something very touching about the 
timidity of these little brown things. 1 always 
wish I could make them understand that I am 
their friend and not their enemy — but this is a 
difficult matter, because there is the small white 
dog to be considered in the compact, and there 
is no sentimentality about him where rabbits are 
concerned ! 

I wouldn't be without these little furry 
families in the coppice, but oh, I do wish they 
would leave the young cabbages alone, or at any 
rate spare the tenderest of the green leaves ! It 
is a bit damping even to ardour like ours to be 
greeted, when we arrive from town, by a gardener 
waving a deprecating hand over rows of hardy 
cabbage stumps bereft of leaves. At such times 
it seems as though it wouldn't have been nearly 
so bad if they had eaten the stems and left us 
the leaves, at least we could have cooked them, 
whereas now ! 

Rabbits certainly emphasize the fact that 
life grows thistles as well as figs. 

With regard to the beans, it is difficult to 

261 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

be philosophical. I can be to some extent 
resigned when my misfortunes are handed out 
to me by Nature, but it is a different thing 
when they are manufactured for me (at my 
expense, too) by my fellow- creatures. 

On the whole, I cannot speak too highly of 
the men who have worked for me about the 
Flower-patch ; I have been exceedingly well 
served, but now and again one comes upon mis- 
fortune, and on one occasion I found I had 
engaged an Ananias of the most proficient 
type. During his brief regime the weeds thrived 
apace, while the choicest bulbs and flowers took 
on a world of diskerridgement. When the 
black pansies, and the heliotrope Spanish iris 
feathered with white and yellow, and the rare 
delphiniums, and the yellow arum lily dis- 
appeared at one fell swoop, Ananias shook his 
head sadly and put their defalcation down to the 
rush of the rain and the angle of the earth. 

" Everything do simply run off this soil I " he 
explained. 

Quite true ; it certainly did. And two legs 
invariably ran with it. 

And the vegetables seemed as subject to 
diskerridgement as the flowers, though it was 
always referred to as " blight." 

There were the broad beans, for instance ; 
I had given him two quarts of seed, and indicated 
where I would like them planted. They were a 

262 



The 

Bonfire 

special prize strain that had been sent to me by 
a famous firm of seedsmen, who had been moved 
to this generous deed on reading some of the 
chronicles of the Flower-patch when they were 
first published in The Woman's Magazine. The 
head of the firm wrote me that they were a new 
mammoth variety, and they would be pleased 
if I would try them in my cottage garden. 

We planned great things when those broad 
beans should be ready. Two quarts would make 
about ten rows, we reckoned, quite a goodly 
plantation for us ; and we decided that as we 
should have plenty, considering our small house- 
hold, we would be extravagant and gather our 
first dishful when they were quite young and in 
that deliciously tender state that is unknown to 
the town dweller, who seldom sees a broad bean 
till it is a tough old patriarch, and in such a 
condition considers it a coarse vegetable. 

It was a cold day in February when I handed 
the seed to Ananias ; we were returning to 
London the same day, so we beguiled part of 
the long journey discussing whether that first 
dish should be accompanied by parsley sauce 
and boiled ham, or whether to fry the ham and 
have the broad beans given one turn in the 
frying-pan after they were boiled. 

The subject seemed more and more vital the 
further we got along the road, for we couldn't 
get luncheon baskets (no, not the War ; it was 

263 s 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

before that event, and due to one of the many 
cheerful strikes with which our pre-war existence 
was punctuated), and the bananas and Banbury 
cakes we purchased en route seemed woefully 
unsatisfying. Hence, it was pleasant, but very 
tantalizing, to contemplate that dish of beans, 
and we finally agreed that the ham should be 
fried, and that we would dig some new potatoes 
specially for the occasion. We sat and meditated 
on that meal, as the winter landscape flew past 
us, and the more we meditated the more 
violently hungry we got. 

You see, the beans really assumed more than 
ordinary importance. 

But alas, when bean time came, all that 
decorated the bean plot was one miserable row 
of wretched-looking stalks. 

" It's that thur blight agin," remarked Ana 
nias ; " I watched it a-comin' up the valley." 

" But why didn't you pinch off the tops, if 
they were showing blight ? " I inquired ; " then 
they would have made fresh shoots lower down." 

He shook his head and looked at me pity- 
ingly : " We don't do our beans like that a-here." 

" And where are all the other rows," I 
asked ; " I suppose blight didn't carry off roots 
and all of the remainder ? " 

"No, 'twere slugs, I warrant, or birds, or 
else the seed were stale, maybe.*' 

Ursula carefully turned over the rest of the 

264 



The 

Bonfire 

ground later on, but never a glimmer of a 
benighted bean did she find. 

Still, Ananias was, as usual, quite willing 
to be obliging. " My beans has done uncommon 
well this year," he continued. " It's jest all 
accordin' how it takes 'em ; sometimes mine 
does well and t'other people's doesn't ; and then 
agin t'other people '11 have a fine crop and 1 
won't have a bean. I can let you have some o' 
mine if you like. I know you're powerful fond 
o' broad beans. I alius say you're jest like my 
missus." (I'm sorry I haven't a portrait of stout, 
unwashed, sixty-five-year- old Sapphira to repro- 
duce ; without it you cannot possibly understand 
how pleased I was !) 

He brought over half a bushel, explaining 
that he had to charge twopence a pound more 
than other people, as these were specially large 
and good yielders, that were expensive in the 
first place. 

They were remarkably fine beans, indeed as 
fine as I have ever seen ; and I wrote to the 
firm of seedsmen and told them their mammoth 
variety had proved all they claimed for it. 

I conclude the miserable row in my garden 
was a twopenny packet bought from the travel- 
ling huckster who peddles seeds around the 
villages at suitable seasons. 

These instances are sufficient to indicate the 

265 s 2 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

trend of Ursula's thoughts when she started to 
philosophize on the garden. She interrupted her 
valuable remarks, however, to exclaim : " Do 
look at that wench ! " And Virginia might well 
be looked at ! Her exertions had turned her the 
colour of a peony ; down her face streamed 
copious "extract of forehead." The clipping 
mania had got thorough hold of her, and she 
was trying to trim every hedge about the place, 
leaving in her wake a trail of clippings for some- 
one else to clear up — as is the way with all 
first-class amateurs. 

The next task pointed out itself. Ursula 
got a birch broom, while I trundled the wheel- 
barrow out of the tool barn ; and seeing that 
there was already a pile of greenstuff waiting 
disposal, I started a bonfire, while Ursula swept 
up and supplied extra fuel. 

I feel sorry for the town dweller ; he knows 
nothing of the real charm of a bonfire. All too 
often the word stands to him for nothing more 
than a mass of damp and decaying leaves that 
simply won't burn. He can only attend to it 
after his return from business, unless he be one 
of the favoured few in town who have gardens 
sufficiently large to allow of their keeping regular 
gardeners. And unfortunately the lighting re- 
strictions of the present day give no real scope 
to the bonfire maker — even if he has anything 
worth burning. His dank mass smoulders to 

266 



The 

Bonfire 

death, or he adds paraffin to encourage it, and 
the neighbours close their windows with meaning 
violence, while the parish reeks of the obnoxious 
odour. Seldom has he air enough to fan any- 
thing like a good fire ; and at length, after 
burning the dozenth newspaper, and listening to 
minute statistical particularization on the part of 
his wife regarding the present price of matches, 
collectively and individually (with deviations re 
sultanas, lemon soles, kitchen tea, coal- cards, 
sugar for the charwoman, ^d. per lb. for delivery, 
soda, a financial comparison of pre-war sirloin 
with modern soup-bones, and the antiquity of 
the new-laid hen), he flings himself disgustedly 
indoors again, depositing a layer of greasy town- 
garden soil and dead leaves on the door-mat, and 
perchance trailing it up to his dressing-room. 

The town bonfire is usually an abomination ; 
the country bonfire is often sheer delight ; and 
the reason for this difference is due to the fact 
that the shut-in nature of the average town back- 
plot seldom supplies the good current of air that 
a bonfire needs to get it going full-swing ; and 
more than this, the refuse that collects in a 
town garden is often sooty, unsanitary and mal- 
odorous. Whereas in the country there is a great 
diversity of stuff to be burnt, and much of it is 
delightfully aromatic. Also, the wind that 
sweeps continually over our hills, for instance, 
dries up the rubbish pile — unless it be actually 

267 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

raining ; we seldom get that dank sodden stuff 
that is the bane of the town gardener. We can 
always get a current of air, if not a stiff breeze, 
to fan the first stages ; and being unhampered 
by the claims of city offices, we can start it in the 
morning, and keep it going the whole day long. 
Our only trouble is to get the red-hot mass to 
slumber through the night ; it has such a trick 
of suddenly bursting out again about 2 a.m., 
lighting up the cottage in the dark, and flaming 
forth a vivid beacon worthy of the men of 
Harlech, and recalling stirring scenes in old 
romance — only the local constabulary have no 
poetic leanings, and merely see in it a case for a 
£10 fine under the Defence of the Realm Act. 

I started the bonfire — not with newspapers, 
these are far too few and precious ; why, our 
very paper bags are smoothed out and treasured 
in a dresser drawer ; some done- with straw and 
dry leaves make a good beginning, with some of 
the dead twigs from the larches. If there are 
laurel clippings to put on next, and there usually 
are, then success is assured. 

Soon the flames were licking up my initial 
work, and I proceeded to pile on hedge trim- 
mings, the sweepings-up of an apple-tree that 
had blown down and been sawn up — and how 
sweet they made the air ! Thistles, nettles, 
brambles, surplus raspberry canes that spring up 
everywhere, a holly-bush that had lately been 

268 



The 

Bonfire 

cut down, worthless gooseberry bushes, piles of 
ivy that had been cut from the walls, more 
barrow-loads of stuff tipped on by Ursula — how 
the laurel flared and the yew crackled, and one's 
eyes smarted as the smoke swept round like a 
whirlwind and enveloped one at times ! I am a 
great believer in the burning of all refuse vege- 
tation; it does away with so much blight and 
vermin and plant disease, and clears out mos- 
quito haunts, and is generally sanitary. 

Virginia had betaken herself to cooler climes, 
but Ursula and I worked at that heap, forking 
on new stuff to stop up flame bursts, till we too 
were shedding dew from our foreheads, and our 
hands were almost sore with wielding the heavy 
forks. 

Yet a fascination keeps you at it, till you are 
smoke-dried and fire-toasted and arm-aching to 
the last degree. When the shades of evening 
finally call you in (as a rule, meals are most 
perfunctory when a bonfire is in progress) you 
are saturated from head to foot with the bonfire, 
your very hair has absorbed the time-old pungent 
odour of the smoke of forest fires. 

And maybe months and months afterwards 
you open a seldom used wardrobe, where old 
gardening gear and shabby mackintoshes are 
kept, and suddenly you are overwhelmed with 
the scent of burning pear and birch leaves and 
yew ; the lure of the woods calls aloud to you ; 

269 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

you feel the sweep of the winds on the hills 
alternating with the great swirls of grey-blue 
bonfire smoke ; the cramped town vanishes, and 

you are in free open spaces once more 

And all because a certain tweed skirt, or 
light gardening coat is hanging in the corner of 
the wardrobe. 

If you want a bonfire with a delicious scent 
that will haunt you with a poignant memory 
long after its ashes have gone the way of all 
things, pile up dead apple leaves and twigs, 
pine needles, beech leaves, the trimmings of the 
sweet bay bushes, brambles, rose-stalks and 
larch — and the incense of the forest will be 
yours, bringing with it a mystic sense of near- 
ness to primaeval things that no perfume sold in 
cut-glass bottles has yet been able to conjure up. 

We didn't wait till sun-down, however, that 
day ; for we were in the most thrilling part of 
the afternoon forking-up, and our complexions 
were at their very, very worst, when Abigail 
tripped out and announced : 

"The Rector. . . . Oh, you needn't worry 
about your appearance, ma'am. Miss Virginia's 
talking to him. . . . Yes, she's changed her 
dress, and is telling him just what you look like." 



270 



XV 

The Meeting at the 
Cottage 

" I have been wondering," the Hector began, " if 
it would be possible for you to let us have a 
Temperance Meeting here in your cottage ? I 
feel sure it would be productive of good, and we 
sadly need more aggressive Temperance work in 
this parish. And a little gathering in a private 
house would be more of a novelty than one held 
in the Parish Room, or at the Rectory." 

" A Temperance Meeting ! " I repeated, rather 
hesitatingly, I confess. I knew well enough that 
there was work waiting to be done in this 
direction, but whether those who most needed 
reforming could be got inside my door was quite 
another matter. 

" Oh, but I am not meaning an evening 
meeting for the purpose of reaching the men 
themselves," the Rector explained. ' My idea 
is to have an afternoon Ladies' Meeting to 
discuss more particularly the question of pro- 
hibition. We might eventually get up a week 
of meetings in various parts of the district. Only 
it all wants talking over. There are a number of 
ladies who would be willing to aid, if only some 
definite scheme were put before them. If you 

271 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

would issue the invitations, I know they would 
be only too pleased to come ; and we could 
possibly get a committee appointed as the initial 
step in the proceedings." 

I saw at once that the idea was a practical 
one. Quite a goodly handful of ladies would be 
available from houses dotted here and there upon 
the hillside. So we made a list of those living 
near enough to me to be invited. 

" Now, have we overlooked anybody ? " I 
said finally, going down the list once more. It 
included the Manor House and one or two other 
large country houses where I knew the people 
would be sympathetic, the rest being cottage- 
residences and small places inhabited by people 
of the educated classes, who kept simple, un- 
assuming establishments — some from choice, 
some because their means were small. In several 
cases the ladies dispensed with any servant, find- 
ing that life's problems and breakages and finger- 
marks were much reduced when they did the 
work themselves ! 

" By the way, there are two visitors in the 
place at present, who would like to come, I am 
sure," said the Eector, " One is a very nice girl, 
who has been doing V.A.D. work since the 
beginning of the War. She is here recruiting 
after a nervous breakdown ; and is boarding at 
the Jones's farm — I know she would appreciate 
an invitation." I duly wrote down her name. 

272 



The Meeting 
at the Cottage 

" And the other, Miss Togsie, is a literary 
lady, and is lodging with old Mrs. Perkins ; do 
you happen to know her name ? " 

I had never heard it before. 

" Ah ! neither had I. But then that would 
not be remarkable. Only she seemed surprised 
to think I did not know of her, though, so far as 
I can ascertain, she has never actually published 
anything. She is engaged on some book of 
research, which she regards as an important 
contribution to the literature of the times, though 
for the moment the subject has escaped my 
memory. She is so exceedingly anxious to 
meet you ; in fact, she — er — suggested that I 
should take her with me to call on you ; but I 
told her that you come down here for rest and 
quiet, and to escape the conventionalities of 
society. She is rather a — er — persistent lady, 
however ; and she says her admiration for you is 
unbounded. So possibly, if you have no objec- 
tion, it might make a pleasant interlude if she 
were invited also." 

I was not very anxious to have her, but I 
agreed, as the Rector seemed to wish it. Still, I 
am afraid my smile was a trifle ironical, as I tailed 
the list with her name. 

Unfortunately, the very day of the meeting 
was the one suddenly selected by Abigail's sister 
for her wedding ; of course, I insisted that 
Abigail must not miss the function, and sent her 

273 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

back to town the day before. But when the 
preparations were divided between the three of 
us, they did not amount to much in the way of 
extra work ; and Ursula made herself responsible 
for the fresh relays of tea that would be necessary 
for new arrivals. 

As is the custom in the country, everybody 
walked round the garden to see how the things 
were coming on, and we all compared notes with 
each other's gardens, and, of course, everybody 
complimented me on the forwardness of my 
things — as in duty bound, seeing they were 
drinking my tea ! 

The V.A.D. proved a delightful girl, very 
nervous at first, but very appreciative. And as 
all my other visitors were fully engaged in 
chatting together in twos and threes, I devoted 
myself to the shy outsider. The Literary Lady 
had not yet appeared. 

" I come up every day and look over the wall 
at your flowers," the girl said. " I believe 
they've done me far more good than the tonic 
I've been taking." 

" I invariably take a dose of them myself, 
when I'm run down," I replied. We were 
wandering around the narrow paths, between the 
beds edged with pieces of grey stone. The paths 
were beginning to be weedy ; and the garden 
was a mixture of early and late spring flowers, 
owing to the undue length of the winter. 

274 



The Meeting 
at the Cottage 

But for the V.A.D. there were no imperfec- 
tions. "I've never seen cowslips like these 
before," and she stooped and touched them 
lovingly. "Those mahogany-coloured ones are 
so rich. And I like the deep reddy-orange ones 
too. Oh — I like them all ! " she added, with a 
sigh of pleasure. " And when I was ill in 
London, before they sent me down here, I felt 
as though I should die if I couldn't get away 
somewhere, where there were flowers and sun- 
shine and where the trees and foliage were fresh 
and clean. Wherever I looked there were grey 
skies, and dingy houses, and discoloured paint, 
and dirty streets, and miserable-looking squares 
and sooty stuff that it was pitiful to call grass, 
and smoke and mud all the same colour and 
equally stupefying. Do you think that dirt can 
get on people's nerves ? " 

I nodded. Don't I know only too well how 
the grime and gloom and all-pervading sordid- 
ness of big cities can get on one's nerves ! Don't 
I know how in time they seem to corrode 
one's very soul, and dull one's vision, till faith 
itself can become clouded, and hope goes, and all 
one's work seems of no avail ! But the merciful 
Lord has provided an antidote. It was a Tree 
He showed at the waters of Marah ; and the 
leaves of the Tree are for the healing of the 
nations in more senses than one. 

The girl continued her confidences : " When 

275 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

I lay awake at nights with insomnia, 1 used to 
shut my eyes and think out the garden I wanted 
to find. It wasn't a grand garden, or a gorgeous 
one that I used to plan — carpet bedding and 
terraces with beds of geraniums and peacocks 
would have tired me to arrange in proper style 
just then. The garden I wanted was the sort of 
happy place where flowers seem to grow of their 
own accord with no one to worry them about 
tidy habits ! 

" And then, it was quite remarkable, the day 
after I arrived here, I chanced upon the lane 
leading to your cottage, and there I saw the very 
garden I had been so longing for, and the masses 
of flowers and colour I had been quite hungry to 
see. I could hardly tear myself away from the 
little gate. Of course, the florists wouldn't think 
much of me for saying it, but although I admire 
with real wonder the magnificent blooms they 
exhibit at shows, I would rather have that piece 
of rocky wall, with its wallflowers on the top, 
than the most expensive orchids they could show 
me. But perhaps all this seems rather childish 
to you ? " 

Yet it didn't ! 1 knew exactly what she 
meant ; and every flower-lover will understand it 
too. There are times when I go a good deal 
farther than the V.A.D., and actually object to 
some of the improvements on Nature horticul- 
turists think they can make. What is gained by 

276 



The Meeting 
at the Cottage 

trying to produce rhododendrons looking like 
gypsophila, while at the same time they are 
trying to get gypsophila looking like paeonies ? 
What purpose is served in the modern craze for 
getting every flower to look like any other flower 
excepting itself ? While I don't mean to imply 
that I am so narrow as to object to attempts at 
horticultural development, there certainly are 
limits to desirable expansion — as Shakespeare 
very well knew. 

But I had no time to say more, for as she 
was speaking I caught sight in the distance of a 
stalwart, aggressive-looking female, with an arm- 
ful of MSS. and walking-stick clasped to her 
waistbelt, and clad in a long, loose, tussore silk 
coat (we were all wearing them short at the 
moment) that she clutched to her chest with her 
other hand, as it had lost its fastenings, and was 
threatening to blow away. Her hat was of the 
fluffy " girlie " description, somewhat bizarre in 
shape, which looked preposterous above the 
lady's mature locks, more especially as she had 
put it on hind part front, not even bothering 
herself to ascertain its compass points. 

Miss Togsie was blandly unconscious of any 
incongruity in her personal appearance, and 
entered the gate with the assured step of " mind 
quite oblivious of matter." Precipitating her- 
self on Ursula — the only hatless person in 
sight, hence evidently not a fellow guest — she 

277 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

exclaimed in a strident voice, " The Editor of The 
Woman's Magazine, I believe ? So glad to meet 
you. I've been longing to know you. So kind 
of you to ask me to this delightful gather- 
ing " etc. 

Now, as I told Ursula later, if she had been 
a true friend, she would merely have smiled 
sweetly and wafted the new arrival into the 
house, and silenced her with refreshments. 
Instead of which, she meanly disclaimed all 
editorial connections, and piloted her up the 
garden to me. Whereupon we began all over 
again. I waited patiently till she reached a 
semicolon, and then invited her to come indoors 
and have some tea. 

" No tea for me, thank you ! " she exclaimed, 
in tones of stern disapproval. " I never touch 
tea." 

"Perhaps you would like some milk and a 
sandwich ? " 

" Oh, no ! I never take flesh foods of any 
description. I adhere strictly to the fruit diet 
which Nature has so bountifully provided for 
our use. If you happen to have a banana, or a 
few muscatels " I hadn't. 

" It's of no consequence," she said, with an 
air of kindly tolerance for my shortcomings. 
" I'm perfectly happy here under the blue dome 
of heaven." My other guests seemed to have 
had enough of her already, and were making 

278 



The Meeting 
at the Cottage 

their way towards the house, as it was nearly 
time to start the meeting ; but Virginia linked 
her arm in that of the V.A.D., and followed 
close at my heels ; for her, the lady promised to 
be interesting. 

" Oh, what adorable kroki ! " the newcomer 
went on, without any break, apostrophising a few 
late crocuses that were already looking jaded. 
" And those daisies ! I do so love daisies, don't 
you? 'Wee modest crimson-tipped flowers' — 
you remember the poet's allusion, of course? 
So appropriate." The flowers she was pointing 
at with her knotty walking-stick were particu- 
larly large, buxom-looking red double daisies, a 
prize variety, that not even the imagination of 
a poet could have described as " wee " ! 

" It's wonderful how literature opens one's 
eyes to the beauties of nature. I always say 
* Read the poets,' then it will not matter whether 
you stay in town or country, nature will be an 
open book to you." (Undoubtedly the Literary 
Lady had arrived ; and she was bent either on 
improving or on impressing us !) " The poets 
take you into the very heart of things. • A 
primrose by a river's brim ' ; where can you find 
a truer picture of the simple wayside flower? 
And isn't that an exquisite line, ' A rose by any 
other name would smell as sweet ' ? I entirely 
agree with Shakespeare in this " (which was nice 
of her !) ; " it is just as I was saying, it really 

279 T 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

doesn't matter whether you know a single flower 
individually — or whether you have ever seen a 
flower, in fact — all nature can be yours. I con- 
sider it criminal to neglect the poets. Wherever 
the eye wanders," she went on, " it recalls some 
great truth that has been crystallised for us by 
literary men " (evidently the flowers themselves 
were of small count ; all that mattered was what 
pen-and-ink could make out of them). 

" And Ladysmocks all silver white." It was 
evident that she was warming to the work and 
going farther afield, for here the stick took a 
dangerous sweep round in mid-air (Virginia 
saved her head by dodging it), and was now 
pointing into the copse the other side of the 
garden-wall, where the anemones were still in 
bloom. " I simply revel in Lady's Smocks, 
don't you ? " she said ardently to Virginia, and 
then smiled expansively into the copse, though 
there wasn't a solitary Lady's Smock there. 

"For my own part, I must say I prefer 
Doxies," said Virginia sweetly. " ' The Doxy 
over the dale,' as Shakespeare so beautifully 
expresses it. Don't you just love them ? " 

The V.A.D. had turned her back on us and 
was studying the distant hills. 

"Virginia," I interpolated hurriedly, for I 
scented trouble immediately ahead, "isn't that 
the Rector coming up the lane ? Then we 
must be getting indoors." 

280 



The Meeting 
at the Cottage 

But the Literary Lady had not nearly said 
all she had come intending to say ; so she told 
me as we walked to the house that she herself 
was engaged on a most exhaustive literary work, 
entitled, " The Cosmic Evidences of Woman's 
Supremacy." 

" Yes," I said, in a blank tone of voice that 
wasn't intended to commit me to anything. 
I've handled many similarly exhaustive MSS. in 
my time, and I've met many authoresses of the 
same, and my one terror was lest she should 
start to give me a detailed synopsis ot each 
chapter. But fortunately we reached the house 
before she could get fairly launched. 

After the opening hymn and prayer, the 
Rector briefly sketched his idea in calling the 
meeting together, and, after reminding us how 
desirable it was at a time like this that some 
active campaign should be set afoot to combat 
the drunkenness that had been such a bane to 
our land, he asked if any ladies who had sugges- 
tions to make would kindly speak briefly and to 
the point. Hardly had he sat down before the 
Literary Lady was on her feet urging upon us 
all the necessity for giving up our inebriate 
habits ! You would have thought she was 
addressing loafers inside a public-house. 

I sat as patiently as I could waiting for hex 
to sit down and give place to someone else, who, 

28l T 2 



Between the Larch* 
woods and the Weir 

at least, knew whom they were addressing. But 
next moment I found, to my amazement, that 
she was lecturing us on the advantages of a 
fruitarian diet, assuring us that most of the evils 
flesh is heir to (including drunkenness) would be 
done away with if we only chained our appetites 
to fruit. She was blissfully unaware that the 
cause of all the trouble in our district was — 
cider ! After every form of food that was not 
fruit had been abused, she passed on — by a 
transition that seemed easy to her, but unac- 
countable to everyone else — to the question of 
woman's suffrage, and we learnt that another 
cause for drunkenness was to be found in the 
fact that women had had no votes. And then 
it dawned upon me that we had let ourselves 
in for an afternoon with some irresponsible 
crank. 

It really seemed as though she meant to go 
on for ever. The Rector's gentle and courteous 
attempts to stem the rushing torrent were not 
of the slightest avail". He tried to interpolate a 
remark now and again, but she never even heard 
him ; she was addressing us at the very top of 
her voice. Of course he ought to have stopped 
her at the very outset ; but then the situation 
was one he had never before been called upon to 
face in the whole of his seventy years ; hers was 
the first female voice to be raised in our parish 
in defiance of the Rector I 

282 



The Meeting 
at the Cottage 

Equally, of course, I ought to have stopped 
her; but one hesitates to take the initiative in 
such a case when there is a chairman, and 
eventually I let matters get quite beyond me. 
I did rise at the back of the room and try to ask 
a few questions, but all in vain ; the speaker 
never paused, and at last I meekly sat down 
again, while Virginia and Ursula, with the 
V.A.D. between them, suffocated in their 
handkerchiefs and showed distinct signs of 
getting out of hand ! Besides what can anyone 
do under such circumstances ? I asked Ursula, 
who once attended election meetings, what it was 
usual to do, and she said, " You just turn them 
out when they talk too much." But who was 
to turn her out ? And how do you set about it ? 

It was evident from her absurd and illogical 
statements that neither the Fruitarians nor the 
Woman's Suffrage party owned her or would 
have authorised her to advocate their claims. 
She was merely one of those women one meets 
occasionally who take up every new craze that 
comes along, and get on their feet and speak 
about their latest hobby, in season and out of 
season, having not the slightest sense of propor- 
tion, and of the fitness of things. Such a 
woman loves to hear her own voice, and imagines 
that other people love to hear it too ! 

After half an hour of this sort of thing the 
lady of the Manor took her departure — not very 

m 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

quietly either ! As I stepped outside in the 
porch to bid her a mournful " Good-bye," she 
pressed my hand and murmured — 

" You poor dear ! Do let me know who 
finally chokes her ! " 

How we should have silenced her eventually 
I don't know, but the matter was taken out of 
our hands by no less important a personage 
than Johnny, the boy who delivered the bread 
from the village shop. 

Unable to find any Abigail at the kitchen 
door, he had come along to the other door to 
know how many loaves I required. From my 
seat in the room I tried to indicate, by dumb 
pantomime, that I wanted one loaf; Miss Smith 
caught sight of him, and remembering that she 
was two miles away from any bread if he over- 
looked her, she told him in a clear voice not to 
forget to leave her a loaf. Then everyone else 
in the room woke up to the fact that Johnny 
was outside, and with one accord they all asked 
him if he had remembered them, or told him 
how many loaves to leave, and no one troubled 
in the slightest whether it interfered with the 
speaker or not. In fact, they seemed to enjoy 
the clatter they were making. 

Johnny, being attacked by so many voices at 
once, stood on the doorstep and addressed the 
room stolidly and respectfully — 

284 



The Meeting 
at the Cottage 

"I've lef your loaf on the window-ledge, 
Miss Primkins; an' I put two for you in the 
fork of the apple-tree, Miss Robinson, so's the 
dog can't get at it, as he's loose ; an' Miss Jones, 
your'n is on the garden seat ; and I've a-put 
Mrs. Wilson's a-top of the wood-pile wiv a bit 
of paper under it " — (undue favouritism to 
Mrs. Wilson, we all thought I)—" an' I've lef 
your nutmegs and soda and coffee on the door- 
step, Miss White ; and I driv a cow out of your 
garden, what had got in, Miss Parker ; the gate 
was lef open; but he's latched up all right 
now " 

At this intelligence the room gave a general 
shuffle, preparatory to a stampede. Why, a 
cow might have got into every garden ! Who 
could tell ? And only those who have cherished 
gardens in the country know what terrible import 
lurked in the words, " The gate was lef open ! " 

The Rector, seeing where matters were 
trending, said we would close with a hymn. 
Before he had given out more than one line, 
Ursula did what she had never done before, and 
has never done since — raised the tune ! She 
said it was sheer hysterics made her do so. At 
any rate we all took it up vigorously, because 
we saw the Literary Lady was trying to add a 
postscript to her previous remarks. It's true, 
Ursula started us on a six-lined tune, whereas 
the verses were only four lines each, but I 

285 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

fortunately discovered it in time, and repeated 
the last two lines to save the situation. 

The people all left hurriedly as soon as the 
Benediction had been pronounced ; most of 
them looking unutterable things at me for 
having let them in for such a time ! The Lite- 
rary Lady alone seemed to have enjoyed herself, 
and went away leaving the bundle of MSS. 
she had brought, after telling me that she 
intended to call on me the very next afternoon 
and bring me " The Cosmic Evidences," as she 
felt sure it would be the very thing for my 
magazine. The unkindest cut of all, however, 
was the farewell remark made by the Vicar's 
niece, as she was adjusting her bonnet-strings — 

" I can't think why on earth you ever asked 
that individual to address us ; but I suppose she 
is some personal friend of yours ? " 

When the two girls and I were left alone 
with the general disorder that always prevails 
after one's guests have gone, Ursula made some 
tea, and Virginia brought in what was left of the 
festal fare, and we sat around the fire and ate in 
melancholy silence. 

"I'm going to town by the very first train 
to-morrow," I said at last. 

" So 'm I ! " fervently ejaculated the other 
two in unison. "And may I never set eyes 
or ears on that fruit creature again," added 

286 



The Meeting 
at the Cottage 

Virginia, as she set down her plate, with an air 
of a pain in her chest, after her sixth cucumber 
sandwich. 

But, though I escaped the lady's next call, I 
had not got to the end of her. She sent an 
avalanche of MSS. to my office, and called per- 
sistently in person. Howbeit, she never was 
troubled to walk beyond the inquiry office, and 
her MSS. were always returned to her with the 
utmost promptitude. 

Some weeks later Virginia and I, after doing 
some shopping in the stores, turned into the 
refreshment-room for lunch. I do not know any 
place where a more varied assortment of femi- 
nine idiosyncrasies thrust themselves upon one's 
notice than in the ladies' luncheon-room ; neither 
do I know any place where you can hear, within 
a given space of time, more particulars of the 
births, marriages, ailments and deaths — plus a 
wealth of intervening data — of people you know 
nothing about, than in that self-same room. 

We had hardly taken our seats at a table 
before we were accompanying our next-door 
neighbour to a dentist, she being in a state of 
complete nervous prostration (full symptoms 
given), and having four teeth extracted {most 
obstinate one that came out in eleven separate 
pieces) with gas that wouldn't " take " (italicised 
description of what the victim underwent, and 

2S7 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

was conscious of, in her half-gone condition). 
After this we dallied through an exceedingly 
comprehensive catalogue of what she had been 
able to take in the way of nourishment since the 
momentous occasion; and finally received, with 
breathless interest, the important information as 
to the exact date when she would be once more 
fully equipped for dinner-parties. 

On our right two more were discussing, with 
gusto, the doings (none of them, apparently, 
what she ought to have done) of a bride who 
had recently entered their family. 

Our own corner of the room was so engaging 
that we did not notice the newcomers who were 
finding seats at other tables. But suddenly, 
above the general chatter, there arose the sound 
of a strident voice that there was no possibility 
of mistaking. Virginia and I gasped simul- 
taneously ; and there, a short distance away 
from us (though, fortunately with its back 
towards us), we beheld the fluffy hat (rightside 
front this time), above a screw of hair, and the 
long tussore coat of recent blessed memories ! 
The Literary Lady had a friend with her, but 
obviously the friend didn't count for much, she 
hadn't a chance ; at most she only squeezed in a 
word when the other made a semi-pause for 
breath. We sat spell-bound, and this is what 
we heard : 

"Now, dear, what are you going to have? 

288 



The Meeting 
at the Cottage 

They have soup, roast beef, roast lamb and mint 
sauce, roast mutton " (and so on, she declaimed 
the menu to the bitter end, while a long- 
suffering waitress stood first on one tired foot 
and then on the other). " Oh, but you must 
have something more than a bun. . . . Non- 
sense, that was hours ago ; I had mine late, too, 
but I'm quite ready for lunch. . . . On strict 
diet, are you ? That doesn't count. Specialists 
always say that sort of thing ; that's what you 
pay the money for ; but it doesn't follow that 
you do what they say. Why, you'd starve to 
death if you did, and then you'd have to go to 
them again and pay another fee — though I dare 
say that's their idea. . . . You would like a 
little roast lamb ? Well, I might manage a 
little, too, if it is very hot ; but I expect they've 
only got it about lukewarm. If the roast lamb 
isn't quite . . . what ? It's cold ? All the joints 
are cold ? The waitress says it's cold, dear ! 
Isn't it simply ridiculous in a place like London 
never to be able to get a hot lunch ! . . . What ? 
The grill is hot ? But, my good girl, I don't 
want any grill. . . . And the soup and fish ? I 
don't want either soup or fish. . . . No, and I 
don't want hot steak-and-kidney pie. I wanted 
hot roast lamb. Still, if you haven't it, I 
suppose it isn't your fault. All the same, it does 

seem as if you are . . . Sausages, did 

you say ? They would be rather nice. Now 

289 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

are they hot or cold, which ? . . . Smoked ? t 
Only smoked sausages ? ? Did you ever know 
such a place ! . . . What do you say to oysters ? 
. . . You thought I only took fruit? I tried 
that for a little while ; my last doctor but one 
was very keen on it ; but if you believe me, I 
was losing pounds a week ! I should have been 
a perfect skeleton by now if I'd gone on. So I 
went to another man, and he insisted — absolutely 
insisted that I must take food containing a larger 
percentage of proteids. And I wasn't sorry ; I 
never had any faith in that fruit idea, only I met 
that doctor when I was at the Hydro, and he 
begged me to try it. A most charming man, 
and he took the greatest interest in my writings ; 
but someone told me only last week that he has 

a wife who is a positive . . . Salmon ? Is 

there salmon ? I didn't notice it. That wouldn't 
be bad, would it ? and the very best thing you 
could have as you're dieting ; so digestible, I 
always find. Now where's that girl gone ? I 
declare they slip away the minute your back's 
turned, and they don't give you a moment to 
look at the menu. Is that our waitress over 
there ? I think it is ; she has on an apron just 
like the girl who was here. . . . That's true, now 
you mention it ; their aprons are all alike. Still, 
I think that was the one, and she's gone over 
there on purpose to be out of reach. But I'll go 
to her," 

290 



The Meeting 
at the Cottage 

Here Virginia and I narrowly escaped detec- 
tion, for the Literary Lady strode across the 
room, knocking down other people's umbrellas 
in passing, brushing one lady's velvet stole from 
the back of a chair, and kicking over a tray that 
had been put down in, apparently, the most out- 
of-the-way spot in the room. Clutching the 
arm of the waitress who belonged to our table 
and had no dealings with the other end of the 
room, she demanded immediate service. In- 
stinctively Virginia and I bent our heads forward 
as low as possible over our plates, and fortunately 
the wide brims of our. hats helped to conceal our 
features. But we only breathed freely when she 
returned to her seat to report to her friend — 

" That waitress says the other girl will be 
back in a minute ; but I doubt it. There ; now 
shes gone off too ! Ah, here's ours — at last ! 
Now, dear, you said sausage, didn't you ? Or 
did we decide on oysters ? . . . You're right ; it 

was salmon. I always think that salmon 

. . . What did you say? . . . Why, of course 
we want bread I We couldn't eat it without, 
could we ? . . . Oh, I see, you mean bread or 
roll? She says will you have bread or roll, 

dear ? . . . Yes, rolls would be nice, but 

Waitress ! Not crusty ones ! . . . Well, per- 
haps bread would be softer for you under the 
circumstances. Stale bread, waitress ! Those 

rolls are usually as hard as . . . Yes, perhaps 

291 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

we had better decide on what we will have to 
drink. I'm going to have lime-juice* You'd 
better have some too. It goes so well with 
salmon. ... Of course they have coffee, if you 

really prefer it ; but I do think that lime-juice 

Well, if that girl hasn't gone off again ! They 
do nothing but run about from pillar to post. 
Oh, she is bringing the other things ! That isn't 
brown bread, waitress ! I said brown bread 
surely ? I must have said brown bread, because 
I positively cannot touch anything else. Don't 
you remember I called you back and said, * Brown 
bread, waitress ? ' Well, if you can change it, 
that's all right. Wait a minute, though ; after 
all, I think I'll have white. . . . Yes, you can 
leave it ; but all the same, I can't think why 
people never listen to what one says." 

Here half the room broke out into an uncon- 
cealed smile ; i.e., the half that had found it 
impossible to raise their voices above hers, and so 
had finally given it up as hopeless, and now 
devoted themselves to listening. But all oblivious 
of everything but herself, she continued — 

" I don't like the look of that salmon. I feel 
sure it's been frozen. Is that the best you have ? 
It looks to me like New Zealand or Canterbury 
salmon ! Really, everything seems to be made in 
Germany nowadays, doesn't it ? And no mayon- 
naise . . . ? It's in the cruet ? I never care for 
that bottled stuff. . . . Oh, yes, leave it ; but I 

292 



The Meeting 
at the Cottage 

wish now that we had had oysters. . . . It's no 
use offering to change it ; we've done nothing 
else so £ar but have wrong things brought us to 
have changed — or at least it would have been 
changed if I hadn't consented to put up with the 
white bread. But you can bring us some lime- 
juice. Now don't forget this time and bring 
ginger-beer. . . . Yes, lime-juice for two. . . . 
But I thought you agreed to lime-juice just 
now ? . . . Oh, have what you like by all means ; 
/ don't mind what it is ; I only advised lime- 
juice because coffee is so very bad for anyone on 
diet, and you can't be too careful ; still, please 
yourself, only do let us decide on something, or 
she'll be off* again. . . . That's it, one coffee and 
one lime-juice. . . . Yes, with plenty of milk. . . . 
Now, I wonder if that scatter-brained girl will 
go and put the milk in the lime-juice ? 

" You were surprised to hear I was back in 
town ? I returned last week. I absolutely 
couldn't have existed on that benighted hill-top 
another hour. ... I knew the moment I set 
eyes on it that it wasn't sufficiently cooked. No 
one could be expected to eat it. She must get 
us something else. Waitress ! This salmon 
isn't Aa//-done. It's as soft as . . . Oh, I see ; 
yours is hard ? Well, at any rate, it isn't what 
it ought to be. Mine is quite spongy, and this 
lady's is as hard as . . . the skin, is it ? . . . this 
lady's skin is just like leather. ... I suppose it 

293 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

had better be oysters. . . . Now I wonder how 
much longer shell keep us waiting ? But as I 
was saying, they were the dullest, most bucolic 
set of people I ever came across ; not a thought 
above their fowls and cabbages. I tried to 
discuss Art and Literature with them — simple 
things, not too far above their heads, you know, 
just to draw them out ; but they merely gazed 
at me in utter blankness. . . . Yes, she has a 
cottage there ; I'd forgotten I mentioned it in 
my letter. . . . Oh, yes, I met her ; in fact she 
persuaded me to address a drawing-room meeting 
at her house ; she got it up on purpose, hearing 
I was in the district. I could ill afford to spare 
the time from my book ; but she wrote and 
made such a point of it, that I could hardly 
refuse without seeming rude. She invited a 
number of the local people to meet me ; but a 

more stupid, unimpressionable collection of- 

. . . what is she like ? Most ordinary. As you 
know, I'm endowed with unusual intuition, and 
can gauge people and sum them up in a moment, 
and I must say I found her a very uninteresting 
person — not to say exceedingly heavy." 

" Which only proves," said Virginia when we 
got outside, " that even the worst of us may 
profit by hearing the truth spoken in love ! " 



294 



XVI 

Moon-Gold in the 
Garden 

The flame of August is over all the garden, a 
blaze of yellow and scarlet, orange and red, for 
most of the blues and pinks go out with July, 
though the lavender flowers are opening in- 
tensely blue, and big clumps of eryngium, with 
blue stems as well as blue flower-heads, make 
masses of contrasting colour amidst the sun- 
flowers, single and double, and the eschscholtzias 
and marigolds glowing golden and undaunted by 
the hottest sunshine. The flowers of the Red- 
hot-poker rival their namesakes ; broad spreading 
clumps of montbretia, each waving hundreds of 
fiery orange and red blossoms, have sprung into 
existence, since last we were here, from lowly 
modest-looking patches of green blades. 

The second crop of Gloire-de- Dijon roses are 
out, likewise holding in their hearts remem- 
brance of the hot sunshine that pervades the 
earth. Geraniums, turned out of doors " to get 
a little air " (though there certainly isn't much 
to get just now !), are shouting aloud in pride of 
their heavy, scarlet bosses. The mountain-ash 
trees contribute plenty of colour, each branch 

295 u 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

bent down with a smother of bunches of berries, 
which are being eagerly devoured by blackbirds, 
thrushes and hawfinches. 

Tall red and yellow hollyhocks try to 
persuade you that they are nearly as high, and 
quite as brilliant, as the mountain-ash. 

Nasturtiums trail all over the place, climbing 
where there is next to nothing to support them, 
with flowers so thick you lose count of the 
foliage. And what a dazzling mass they make, 
touched apparently with every shade of yellow 
and brown and red, from blossoms of palest 
primrose marked with vivid scarlet, past salmon- 
colour streaked with orange, and lemon yellow 
splashed with chocolate, to dark mahogany-red 
smoked with deep purple-brown. They smother 
weeds (that gain in impudence as the season 
advances), and cover bare places where bulbs 
and earlier blooming plants have died down. 
They hang over the tops of walls ; they crowd 
the border pinks into the paths ; they get mixed 
up with the hedges, and surprise you by sending 
out vermilion flowers at the top of a sedate old 
box-tree clipped to look like a solid square table. 
They run out of the little white gate into the 
lane, and they creep under the rails into the 
orchard. Indeed, there are times when their 
exuberance almost makes one tired, more espe- 
cially if the thermometer favours the nineties ! 

The garden walls are teeming with colour. 

296 



Moon-Gold in 
the Garden 

Sweet Alyssum has seeded itself wherever it can 
find a spare niche — rather a difficulty, unless a 
plant goes house-hunting quite early in the 
season ! Though the white and purple arabis 
finished flowering months ago, it contributes 
crimson and purple to the colour scheme, as its 
foliage ripens in the hot sun. 

Any intelligent gardener can tell me that the 
top of a sunny wall is far too hot for a fuschia. 
Certainly ; and of course it is — especially in 
August. Yet some misguided person had one 
planted there — just where the wall has a break 
in it, and a flight of steps leads down to the next 
level. It is the lovely old-fashioned bush sort, 
smothered with slender drooping blossoms ; and 
it reaches out long arms that arch right over the 
steps, and as you go down, unless you lower 
your head, you set a-tinkling scores of crimson 
bells with rich blue-purple centres. 

And people who understand all about fuchsias 
glare at it severely, and then at me, and remark, 
" A most unsuitable position ! " 

And where nothing else in particular is 
making any sort of a show, the ubiquitous Herb 
Robert spreads itself about, on the top of the 
walls, or roots in crevices down the sides — it 
isn't particular where ; so long as there are stones 
that need clothing with loveliness, there you will 
find it, laying its crimson leaves with a lacy 
airiness over the stern surface of the rock. 

297 u 2 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

The very scents of the garden are hot and 
pungent, as one rubs against thyme and mar- 
joram, or the great sage bush that smothers one 
wall. The trees of sweet bay were cut in the 
morning ; the rosemary bushes had to be trimmed 
where their branches were lying on the ground ; 
someone has stepped on pieces in passing. 

All day long the heat strikes down on the 
parched, cracking earth, baking the stones, 
shrivelling up any fern fronds that chance to 
catch its direct rays, drying up the little brook, 
and testing the powers of endurance of the 
scarlets and yellows, orange and reds, that are 
flaunting themselves in the face of the sun. 

To sit out of doors is only possible beneath 
the firs and larches, in the green shade by the 
wood house, where the sun never penetrates ; and 
even here it makes one warm to watch the glare 
beyond the thicket of trees, the hot air quivering, 
nothing but butterflies and dragon flies about, 
and nought to break a breathless silence but 
the twitter of the tits, grub-hunting in the 
larches, and the perpetual hum of uncountable 
insects, who seem to find no heat too great. 

But presently the shadows of the pines begin 
to lengthen, and in the shade thrown by the 
larches along the meadow side blackbirds are 
seen making short runs along the ground on 
foraging expeditions. Chaffinches, tits, linnets, 

298 



Moon-Gold In 
the Garden 

and bullfinches come out from green hiding 
places and go down to the birds' bath to drink. 

Longer grow the shadows, the swallows rise 
and take high curving sweeps in the upper air — 
wonderful little aeronauts whom no man has 
trained. 

As the sun touches the top of the opposite 
hills a breeze wakes up the birch wood, whisper- 
ing that the sunset will soon be here, and the 
leaves start talking about the stifling heat that 
so exhausted them through the day. 

The sun drops lower behind the hill ; rabbits 
peep out from beneath the brambles, then make 
for the hummocky field that adjoins my cabbages, 
the field where the big oaks stretch wide arms 
over soft, green, luscious grass — OfiVs Oaks we 
have named these ancient giants, because they 
border Offa's Dyke ; and they have so often 
described to the more youthful birch trees the 
time when they saw OfFa, King of Mercia, come 
marching past in 765 a.d., that at length they 
have actually come to believe they were alive 
and flourishing in his day ! We humour their 
age by pretending that it was so. 

At last the sun disappears, flaming to the 
last in crimson and gold, orange and red. The 
breeze gets lustier after the sun has gone under, 
and a squirrel comes scampering head first down 
a tall fir-tree, in search of a delicious toadstool 
that he sometimes finds at its base. Pheasants 

299 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

strut up out of the coppice, and roam about the 
pasture. 

Imperceptibly, you know not whence it 
comes, there steals over the earth the cool, re- 
freshing scent ol dew-drenched bracken, mingling 
with the sweet wistful evening incense of some 
late honeysuckle. 

And as you watch the fading after-glow of 
pink and saffron, sea-green and tawny-rose, you 
sense that in some mysterious way the face of 
the garden has entirely changed. Gone is the 
fire of the scarlet geraniums ; lost is the ver- 
milion of the nasturtiums ; even the sunflowers 
hang their heads, and the hollyhocks have turned 
off their lights. The marigolds have closed their 
eyes, and the eschscholtzias have folded up their 
brave flowers, the tired little heads bowing over, 
thankful for this respite. 

Then, as the montbretias toll the Angelus 
from crowds of golden throated bells, the evening 
primroses, silently, gratefully, open a thousand 
blossoms and bathe the garden in a wondrous 
gleam. 

Such a clear, clean yellow it is ; so quiet and 
yet so penetrating ; it seems in some strange 
way to hold the radiance of heaven and focus it 
on the sleeping Flower-patch, subduing all that 
would strike a glaring note, hiding the ragged 
deficiencies of fading leaves and withering seed- 
pods. 

300 



Moon-Gold in 
the Garden 

By day one scarcely noticed the straggling 
plants at all, save perhaps to remark on their 
rather shabby appearance. But now they shine 
from terraces and wall-tops ; from crannies in 
the rough stone steps they send up tall shafts, 
bearing aloft their evening lamps ; about the 
garden beds, among the currant bushes, at the 
edge of the gravel walk, between the stones in 
the paved path, wherever they can find root- 
room, they have taken hold — for they were ever 
wanderers, and given to exploring the farther- 
most corner of any garden wherein they have 
made themselves at home. 

The last rose-pink flush has faded from the 
clouds ; not even a sleepy twitter is heard from 
bush or bough ; the wind soughs softly in the 
pine-trees, those harps of endless strings. From 
out her hidden stores of abundance, Nature 
has given moisture to the grass, refreshment to 
the fainting foxglove leaves, and damped the 
forest fern. Then, breathing quiet on a weary 
world, has bidden it take rest. 

Yet all are not asleep. Standing like 
sentinels through the darkest hours of night, the 
evening primroses, adding scent to scent, flood 
the garden from end to end with a veritable 
glory of swaying, gleaming moon-gold. 



301 



XVII 

The Carillon of the 
Wilds 

Of all the host of alluring things that make for 
themselves homes on our hillside, one of the 
most lovely is the foxglove. Yet there is no 
blatancy about its beauty, nor a great blaze of 
light as when the ox-eye daisies wave over the 
fields in June. 

There is something more subtle than even 
its colouring that attracts one to this flower, for 
there is mind-rest, there is balm for anxious 
hearts, there is new hope and new courage, with 
whispers of happiness, in the depths of a fox- 
glove bell. 

If you doubt this, go on a foxglove quest ; 
leave everything bearing the hall-mark of 
advanced up-to-dateness far behind you — though 
I've nothing to say against the train that takes 
you away from towns to the place where the 
foxgloves grow ! Forget all the regulation ways 
of enjoying yourself, and search out the haunts 
of the carillon of the wilds. 

You will find them on the shady sides of the 
hedges, their spikes of bells pushing up through 
hawthorn and sloe, through the tangle of bramble 

302 



The Carillon 
of the Wilds 

and bryony, cleavers and dog rose that scramble 
over the pollarded nut-bushes, beeches, elm- 
stumps, and ash-boles, amid all the dear delights 
that go to make that poem of loveliness — an 
English hedgerow. 

You will also find them in little hollows and 
dells, in small ravines and in craggy places — in 
any spot where they can get a little moisture for 
the roots and occasional sunshine for the flowers, 
with a certain amount of immunity from the 
devastating hand of the human marauder. Give 
them but a ghost of a chance to seed themselves 
(though this is what the greedy flower-gatherer 
invariably denies them), and they will spread with 
great rapidity, and paint the face of nature with 
a rich glowing carmine that almost makes you 
hold your breath when first you see the broad 
sweeps of colour on certain hillsides in mid- June. 

When you have found them, in any of their 
haunts, lift one of the bells and look right into 
it, delighting in the splashes and markings, the 
fine filaments and the silken texture, the pink 
and purple and crimson, the dark brown and 
white, the poise of the stalk, the droop of the 
bells, the balance that the leaf-arrangement gives 
to the whole plant, and the many other charac- 
teristics that go to make up one of the most 
exquisite of nature's products. 

The trouble is that in sparse soil, or in wind- 
swept places, the plant does not grow so tall as 

303 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

in a protected and secluded spot. Hence when 
we meet it in the open, its bells hang downwards 
below the eye-line, and we do not often re- 
member to stoop and lift one, to see what 
message the bee left for us. Perhaps that is one 
reason why it seems to me that, while sunflowers 
and hollyhocks spend their days in gazing 
after grown-ups, foxgloves are for ever nodding 
smilingly and encouragingly to little children. 

To those who are accustomed to agricultural 
scenery, where the landscape shows far expanses 
of pasture-land and cornfields, with wide spread- 
ing low-roofed farms clustered around with barns 
and ricks, our hills come as a surprise with their 
uneven surfaces, and the scarcity of soil in com- 
parison with the superabundance of rock. 

And even taking into consideration all the 
cleared spaces and small farms, the outstanding 
feature of the country, so far as the eye can see, 
is timber. This is a region of woods and 
coppices, with springs that bubble up at the 
roots of sturdy trees, protected by their thick 
leafage from the onslaughts of the sun. This is 
a land of dim grey-green mystery, of silences 
that make one tread with reverent awe till one 
is brought back to earth, by the ring of the 
woodman's axe, the leisurely song of his saw, 
and the crish-crash of a tree as it falls. 

In the course of time, the woods have to be 
cut ; some are cut every fourteen years ; others 

304 



The Carillon 
of the Wilds 

are left much longer ; it all depends on the kind 
of tree and the purpose for which it is being 
grown. 

But though the woods are cut periodically, it 
is not so devastating a process as one might 
imagine. For one thing, it is clean work ; for 
another, it is surface work ; and then it is all 
done in the open air, with hand-tools and no 
machinery, and it is carried out on nature's own 
lines. Hence there is no underground dis- 
turbance that would prevent further growth, 
and no smoke of power-driven machinery pollutes 
the earth and air. 

Yet there would be something very pathetic 
about the felling of the trees, as you walk over 
ground that has been cut, were it not for the 
magical display of beauty nature puts forth in 
such circumstances, multitudes of flowers spring- 
ing into being that otherwise would not have 
come to birth. 

At first you see but the prostrate trunks of 
the trees, with ivy still clinging to the bark ; 
there they lie, with branches lopped, each sur- 
rounded by piles of small timber cut into regula- 
tion lengths for various commercial purposes ; 
with " cords " of faggots for firing, and stacks 
of stuff for pea sticks and similar purposes. 

Yet you are not long wandering over the 
newly- cleared slopes before you see things that 
were not evident before. 

305 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

In winter you discover a red-gold carpet — 
too golden to be brown, too brown to be red — 
where lie the leaves of the beeches that you 
never noticed when the trees were standing. 

Then, as spring breathes life into the sleeping 
earth, the dead leaves stir, silently, mysteriously, 
no human ear can detect the rustle, no human 
eye can see the movement, yet the leaves lift 
and move apart, disclosing the yellow and green, 
and silvery-pink of the primrose buds. 

Still further the dead leaves lift, and the violets 
look out, and then run all over the place. The 
wind-flowers push up next, and before you 
realize what has happened, the place is literally 
dancing with them. Where did they all come 
from ? 

Last spring you went through this very wood 
and saw only a few scattered about at wide 
distances, where there chanced to be a filter of 
light through the dense branches overhead. 
Now the place is an open air ball-room of 
curtesying sprites. 

Such are the wonderful ways of the woods ! 

In sheltered spots where the cold winds 
cannot reach, cushions of wood-sorrel unfurl 
their pale-green leaves, and then send up, 
cautiously and shyly, the fragile bells that look 
as though a breath would blow them away. 
The woodruff also sets to work, for there must 
be beauty of odour as well as beauty of colour 

3°6 



The Carillon 
of the Wilds 

and form, and something will be needed to take 
the place of the violets when they go. 

By this time the bluebells are ready to come 
out ; but there is no shyness about these, sturdy 
in their growth, no obstacle seems to hinder 
them ; up come the green spears, making their 
own way through dead leaves and twigs and 
moss and acorn cup, through thickets of low- 
lying bramble, through carpets of close-growing 
ivy ; if a dead branch or a tree trunk lies in their 
way, they peep out at one side, " Is there a 
trifle of daylight here ? " And up they come, 
carpeting with blue the open spaces between the 
huge masses of rock that lie pell-mell about the 
surface ; while the humble little ground-ivy lays 
cool green fingers, and a little later its violet- 
blue flowers, over the cream and silver of the 
birches, the soft grey of the beeches, and the 
rough bark of the oaks, where the felled trunks 
lie among the up-springing grass, sensh*^ for the 
last time the coming of spring and summer on 
the hillside. 

Then it is, when the bluebells have turned to 
papery seed-pods, and the primroses have paled 
away into space, that the foxgloves begin to 
shake out their flowers and the hillside glows and 
palpitates with colour. They flourish with a 
joyous abandon that is positively infectious, and 
makes one feel there is still much left to live for. 
The way they suddenly appear when the trees are 

307 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

down — whole battalions of them — where only a 
season before there were regiments of larches, or 
thick woods of mixed timber, is really marvellous. 
Undoubtedly the ground must be packed with 
seed ; more than this, there must always be 
young seedlings coming up among the under- 
growth or in sheltered crevices where the larch 
needles do not penetrate ; for no sooner are the 
trees cut than foxgloves start to spread their 
leaves to the light, and by the following summer, 
often before half the timber has been carried, 
you find them by the thousand — and that is a 
very low estimate — dotted all over the rough 
land, and, with a host of ferns, trying to cover 
up all that is maimed, and bare, and jagged, to 
hide the scars where the mighty have fallen, to 
give beauty for ashes in a very literal sense. 

Moreover, there seems an almost uncanny 
intelligence in the way they adapt themselves to 
their environment. You would think they knew 
that the winds from the far-off Channel blow 
strong at times, across these high open spaces ; 
for you find that they invariably place them- 
selves in the shelter of a big boulder, or settle 
down in a little hollow with a protecting flank 
of rockery, evidently conscious that their tall 
stems would be lashed down flat if exposed to 
the full force of the wind. Or you find them 
growing, it may be, at the foot of a crumbling 
gate post, or against an ivy-covered rock, or 

3cS 



The Carillon 
of the Wilds 

rows of them nestling close up to a lichen- 
covered stone wall ; and in this way their beauty 
is enhanced by the background. 

And when they find themselves in an un- 
congenial setting — springing up in the very centre 
of a woodland path perhaps, or out in the open 
where the woodmen have been lopping the 
branches from a felled tree, and there is much 
devastation to be covered over and atoned for — 
there the foxglove lays its leaves as flat as 
possible against the earth, so as to offer the least 
inducement to the passer-by to injure it. And 
though it still sends up its flowers as bravely as 
it knows how, they are only a foot high, not the 
five and six feet of the foxglove in the shelter. 
Yet if it be possible, in the least bit possible, it 
leans against the pile of faggots, or gently touches 
the desolate trunk of what was once a majestic 
old tree — and who dare say that the silent com- 
panionship counts for nothing ? 

As I write this, in a year of the Awful War, 
there are some who would tell me that foxgloves 
will not find the people in food ; while others 
see no value in the larches apart from their 
service as mine-props. 

Yet, while I would not under-estimate the 
utilitarian worth of crops and timber, the age-old 
truth is still insistent : Man cannot live by 
bread alone. 

309 



Between the Larch- 
woods and the Weir 

You may clear from the surface of the land 
every plant that is not edible ; you may fell 
every tree that does not serve for telegraph pole 
or pit wood ; you may tabulate the food-pro- 
ductive qualities of the whole earth, and serve it 
out in a blue-book as literature for the people ; 
you may manufacture electricity till there is no 
longer any night, and the mysteries of the twi- 
light and the moonlight and the starlight are lost 
to us for ever ; you may destroy the birds till 
there isn't one Glad- song left in the caterpillar- 
riddled orchards and gardens ; you may harness 
the rivers and streams for mechanical purposes, 
and drown the voices of the weir in the whirr of 
wheels, till there isn't an ounce of energy flowing 
to waste throughout the length and breadth of 
the country ; you may turn all Nature into a 
huge commercial enterprise that is the last word 
in economics and efficient organization — and 
what will be the result ? 

Machines in place of souls ! 

Germany strove to subserve everything to 
her own materialistic ends, and the price of her 
hideous and colossal crime is a world's agony. 

Though this may seem but a parable, to some 
the reading will be clear: Where there is no 
vision, the people perish. 



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